Flashback: Biden challenged to take pre-debate drug test in 2024; his son now makes Ambien claim
Former President Joe Biden's campaign dodged answering whether the president planned to take performance-enhancing drugs ahead of his debate against President Donald Trump just over a year ago, instead arguing that Trump and his campaign were spreading "desperate, obviously false lies" about the 46th president potentially taking drugs.
About one year after Biden's ill-fated debate, former first son Hunter Biden claimed in a wild and expansive interview published Monday his dad's poor debate performance was due to taking Ambien, a sedative-hypnotic typically used to treat insomnia.
"I know exactly what happened in that debate," Hunter Biden said in the interview. "He flew around the world, basically, the mileage that he could have flown around the world, three times. He's 81 years old. He's tired as s---. They give him Ambien to be able to sleep.
"He gets up on the stage, and he looks like he's a deer in the headlights," Hunter added. "And it feeds into every f---ing story that anybody wants to tell."
BIDEN AIDES PUSHED FOR EARLY DEBATE TO SHOW OFF BIDEN'S 'STRENGTH,' EXPOSE TRUMP'S 'WEAKNESS,' BOOK SAYS
On June 26, 2024, the day before the debate, Fox News Digital reached out to the Biden campaign inquiring if Biden had any plans to use performance-enhancing drugs for the debate, but staffers twice avoided a direct answer to the question.
At the time, Trump was leading a rising chorus, which included lawmakers, demanding that Biden take a drug test before the showdown. Those advocating a screening suggested Biden may have been motivated by a desire to quell mounting concerns about his mental acuity.
"Donald Trump is so scared of being held accountable for his toxic agenda of attacking reproductive freedom and cutting Social Security that he and his allies are resorting to desperate, obviously false lies," a Biden campaign spokesperson told Fox News Digital the evening ahead of that 2024 debate.
When asked in a follow-up email for a "yes" or "no" response, the spokesperson said the original statement answered the question.
"The accusation from Trump on drugs is a desperate, obviously false lie," the response said.
Ambien is a sedative that slows brain activity to help a person fall asleep and would not act as a performance-enhancing supplement for a public debate.
FLASHBACK: THE DEBATE NIGHT AGAINST TRUMP THAT THREW BIDEN'S REELECTION CAMPAIGN INTO A FREE FALL
ONE YEAR LATER: HOW JOE BIDEN'S DISASTROUS DEBATE PERFORMANCE FORCED HIS MEDIA ALLIES TO TURN ON HIM
Joe Biden spent days preparing for the debate at Camp David in Maryland with videos of his public gaffes and missteps haunting the campaign in the days leading up to the debate. Trump, meanwhile, led the charge in demanding Biden take a drug test to prove he was not taking performance-enhancing supplements ahead of the highly anticipated event.
"DRUG TEST FOR CROOKED JOE BIDEN??? I WOULD, ALSO, IMMEDIATELY AGREE TO ONE!!!" Trump posted to Truth Social in the lead-up to the debate.
Fox News Digital also reached out to the White House and Trump campaign asking if Biden or Trump, respectively, planned to take performance-enhancing drugs ahead of the debate. The Biden White House did not respond at the time, while the Trump campaign responded.
"Absolutely not," then-campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told Fox News Digital at the time.
"President Trump has naturally elite stamina and doesn't need performance-enhancing drugs, unlike Joe Biden, who many are saying will be drugged up for the debate like he was at the State of the Union," Leavitt said at the time. "President Trump has repeatedly asked Joe Biden to participate in drug testing. What does Team Biden have to hide?"
BOOK REVEALS BIDEN ADVISORS DECLINED TO HAVE PRESIDENT TAKE A COGNITIVE TEST IN FEBRUARY 2024: REPORT
Hunter Biden's recent explosive interview on "Channel 5 with Andrew Callaghan," released on YouTube, fanned the flames of Biden's presidency and exit from the 2024 federal election amid ongoing accusations that Biden's mental acuity had cratered during his Oval Office tenure.
Biden entered the re-election cycle already racked by claims and concerns that his mental acuity had slipped, and he was not mentally fit to continue serving as president, which was underscored by special counsel Robert Hur's report in February 2024 that rejected criminal charges against Biden for possessing classified materials, saying he was "a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory."
Biden also brushed off accusations he was using any performance-enhancing supplements, including mocking Trump's challenge that he take a drug test in an X post just before the debate showing him drinking a can of water.
"I don't know what they've got in these performance enhancers, but I'm feeling pretty jacked up. Try it yourselves, folks. See you in a bit," the X post said, accompanied by a photo of Biden drinking a can of water that said "Get real, Jack. It's just water."
The debate was an abject failure for Biden as he stumbled over his responses and appeared to lose his train of thought and slur words at times, opening the floodgates of criticism from longtime Democratic allies who called on Biden to drop out of the race and pass the torch to a younger generation to take on Trump.
A handful of former President Barack Obama's allies and former advisors publicly helped lead the charge in calling on Biden to drop out of the 2024 race earlier in the summer, including David Axelrod , who said Biden was "not winning this race;" George Clooney, who called on the president to quit in a bombshell op-ed; and Jon Favreau, who served as former director of speech writing for Obama.
BIDEN CAMP DODGES ANSWERING IF PRESIDENT PLANS TO USE PERFORMANCE-ENHANCING DRUGS BEFORE DEBATE
Hunter Biden unleashed on the Democrats who turned their backs on his dad as he attempted to recover from the debate performance in his expletive-riddled interview Monday.
"F‑‑- you. What do you have to do with f‑‑‑ing anything? Why do I have to f‑‑‑ing listen to you? What right do you have to step on a man who's given 52 years of his f‑‑‑ing life to the service of this country," Hunter Biden said of Clooney.
"They're all going to insert their judgment over a man who has figured out, unlike anybody else, how to get elected to the United States Senate over seven times … and how to garner more votes than any president that has ever won, and they're going to replace their judgment for his?" he added, assailing other Biden allies who encouraged Joe Biden to drop out of the race.
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Fox News Digital reached out to the former president's office regarding Hunter Biden's remarks and the campaign's previous statements when asked about whether Biden would use performance-enhancing drugs ahead of the 2024 debate, but did not immediately receive a reply.
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