Radical Biden advisers pushed for an early debate with President Trump, hoping it would showcase Biden’s “strength”—but it backfired spectacularly. According to a six-page memo dated April 15, 2024, senior aides, including Ron Klain and Cedric Richmond, urged Biden to face Trump early to reach “the widest audience possible” and demonstrate “the strength of YOUR leadership.”
“The earlier YOU are able to debate the better,” the memo read, claiming Americans would see Biden standing strong against Trump’s “weakness and chaos.” Instead, the June debate exposed Biden’s visible cognitive decline, triggering his campaign’s collapse and eventual withdrawal from the race.
Reports now confirm Biden appeared “extremely exhausted” and “unaware of what was happening in his own campaign” just days before the debate, according to longtime aide Ron Klain, as quoted in Chris Whipple’s Uncharted. Klain, who led debate prep, reportedly feared the debate “would be a nationally televised disaster.”
The Politico-obtained memo, featured in the forthcoming book 2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America by journalists Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager, and Isaac Arnsdorf, contradicts Klain’s post-debate concerns. “YOUR Senior Advisors, including Ron and Cedric, continue to believe it is important to move forward” with early debates, the memo insisted.
In the end, as Whipple noted, “The president was fatigued, befuddled, and disengaged.” The same team that pushed him into the spotlight ultimately watched him exit it in failure.
