'Didn't go public as I wanted him to win': Podcaster Jon Lovett admits he had concerns about Joe Biden's declining health
Jon Lovett; Joe Biden
"Pod Save America" co-host Jon Lovett has admitted he had concerns about the then-US President
Joe Biden
's physical decline during the 2024 campaign.
Lovett once wrote speeches for Barack Obama.
Biden served as vice president during Obama's presidency (2009-2017).
Lovett made the admission on Jon Stewart's "The Weekly Show" podcast, saying he didn't want to publicly voice his concern over Biden's declining health because he wanted the Democrat to win.
"I remember feeling I want to talk about this as a huge liability. To talk about this is something Joe Biden can overcome, but I'm not going to go so far as to say, 'I think Joe Biden must drop out. He is too old to be president,'" Fox News quoted Lovett as
saying
on the podcast.
"A, because I didn't know exactly what was going on behind the scenes, but B, if Joe Biden is the (presidential) candidate, I want him to win," he added.
Further, the Los Angeles-based writer said he was worried that expressing his concerns would be "weaponized" against Biden by the latter's political opponents.
"I kept my concerns to myself to avoid having the words we're saying taken out of context and all of a sudden be part of the case against Joe Biden from the right — that would use any person criticizing Joe Biden from the left as a weapon against him.
So it was about being honest about Joe Biden's age as a liability while knowing that if he is the nominee, I want to be clear that I thought it was important to make sure we did everything we could to re-elect him," Lovett claimed.
CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios's Alex Thompson have recently drawn attention to Biden's health while promoting their new book, "Original Sin," which covered the decline in health of the ex-US president and the alleged cover-up by his administration to keep it under wraps.
Lovett is featured in "Original Sin" in an anecdote where he and his "Pod Save America" co-hosts Jon Favreau and Dan Pfeiffer met with Biden at the White House on April 26, 2024. The book described them as "deeply disturbed" after their discussions with Biden that night, with the authors describing the then-president as rambling and "incoherent."
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