Bill Clinton stands by assessment Biden’s mind was ‘clear’ on ABC’s ‘The View’

Former President Bill Clinton, on ABC’s “The View” on Thursday, said he didn’t have concerns about former President Joe Biden’s mental sharpness amid a slate of reports that allege a decline in Biden’s acuity during the 2024 campaign and at the end of his presidency.

“Well, I think you have to pay attention to them,” Clinton said when asked about the accounts. “But all I can say is whenever I was around him, his mind was clear, his judgment was good and he was on top of his brief.”

Clinton went on to question decisions made by the White House in the lead-up to the CNN debate in June 2024 between Biden and Donald Trump, including Biden’s overseas travel in the days prior to his standoff with Trump on stage.

“He was 80 years old. What the heck is he doing that for?” Clinton said. “Why was that allowed to happen?”

“There’s a lot of questions. I don’t know,” Clinton continued. “All I know is I think we should think less about that, more about the future.”

A spokesperson for Biden recently told ABC News in response to the release of “Original Sin,” a book alleging a White House cover-up of Biden reportedly declining in office, that “there is nothing in this book that shows Joe Biden failed to do his job, as the authors have alleged, nor did they prove their allegation that there was a cover up or conspiracy.”

Speaking about President Donald Trump, Clinton criticized him for his work to “implement that White House 2025 report that he said he never read” — a reference to Project 2025, a policy handbook written by the Heritage Foundation that Trump disavowed on the campaign trail.

“He said, ‘Don’t read that, don’t pay attention to it,’ but he always does that, so people pretty much knew what they were getting and get, you know, new and unprecedented actions against immigrants, legal and otherwise, and a few modest tax cut[s], but I think there’s been more of what they thought they’d get on the tariffs, the taxes and the immigrants and other things,” Clinton said. “I think there’s been more of it than they expected.”

Some of the Trump administration’s actions and orders have been held up by federal courts, including actions on immigration and government cuts. Clinton said he is nervous “that the courts won’t hold until we have the midterm elections.”

He added that he feels the Supreme Court has made some good decisions, such as the court’s ruling that the Trump administration’s mistaken removal of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador was illegal — though the migrant remains in jail in El Salvador.

“So I’m worried about that, and you should be worried about that, whatever your politics. … I have a sneaking suspicion if we — if our [Democratic] Party wins the White House in the next election, there’ll be a hallelujah moment, and the Supreme Court will rediscover the Constitution,” Clinton said.

Clinton was appearing jointly with novelist James Patterson to speak about their latest co-written novel, “The First Gentleman,” a thriller that follows the president and her husband, a former NFL star, as the first gentleman is accused of murdering his cheerleader ex-girlfriend.

Patterson and Clinton told “The View” about their close relationship. Patterson brought up a lighthearted memory between the two of them that showed Clinton’s more casual, grandfatherly side.

“The president called the house — this was last summer, and we lived close to each other in the summer — and [my wife] Sue picked up the thing and he said, ‘Put me on picture phone,'” Patterson said. “And he was with the grandkids and he was in a tiger suit and only his face was showing.”

“His wife is a better athlete than we are,” Clinton added. “Sue hit the golf ball further than any one of us.”

Later, Patterson and Clinton also criticized book bans and removals from school districts and from the White House, with Patterson bringing up how his young adult series Maximum Ride faced a book ban. The series was removed in 2023 from some school libraries in Florida.

“Sometimes, it’s one person comes in, yeah, and they object. And a lot of times, they haven’t read the books and they just object, and boom, it gets banned. … That’s madness,” Patterson said.

Clinton criticized the removal of Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” from the U.S. Naval Academy’s library, saying that only adults would be reading it there.

“And I took it personally because she was a friend of mine, and I spoke at her funeral and she read the inaugural poem in 1993, but she was, she had a magnificent life. … It was insane, and it should really bother people,” he said.