Ex-CNN journalist speaks out on Biden's health cover-up: ‘Ample evidence'
Cilizza, who previously served as CNN's editor-at-large and now has his own Substack, opened up about his experience as the media industry reckons with the notion it failed to cover Biden's declining health until his frail debate showing last June that led to him exiting the 2024 presidential race.
'I think there is now ample evidence that there was a cover-up on Joe Biden's actual physical and mental condition by his aides in the White House. There's been a ton of reporting on it… too much, I think, to dismiss it,' Cillizza told Fox News Digital in an email.
While Cillizza believes Biden aides were hiding the truth from the American people, the former CNN political analyst doesn't believe the press was part of the cover-up.
'Instead, I think the Biden team made it really hard to ask questions about his health — they shamed you, said you didn't like him, etc.,' Cillizza said, noting that many reporters, including himself, 'let that be that.'
4 'I think there is now ample evidence that there was a cover-up on Joe Biden's actual physical and mental condition by his aides in the White House,' former CNN journalist Chris Cillizza said.
Chris Cillizza / YouTube
Cillizza doesn't believe President Donald Trump's team would receive the same treatment from the mainstream press. He feels that some reporters took the Biden team's word for it because they were either more 'inclined to believe a Democratic president,' or were likely to believe 'someone who hadn't said 30,000 false or misleading things while in office.'
Cillizza has been outspoken about the ordeal in recent weeks and recently released a video titled, 'Why it *still* matters that the media missed the big Biden story,' where he reflected on how Axios' Alex Thompson used his award speech at the White House Correspondents' Dinner to 'call out how both the Biden White House and the media mishandled President Biden's cognitive decline during the 2024 election.'
4 President Biden unexpectedly performed a sign of the cross during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York City.
Reuters
Cillizza said there is a high bar to directly report that Biden had dementia or some similar condition, which he believes wasn't met.
'The fact that I do not believe there was any coordinated cover-up by the media of Joe Biden's condition, that does not get us media off the hook,' he said.
'The media should have asked more questions about Joe Biden I should have asked more questions about Joe Biden and his health,' Cillizza continued. 'We should have dug harder.'
4 Joe Biden trips as he walks onto stage to deliver a speech in Sydney on July 20, 2016.
AFP via Getty Images
Last year, Cillizza offered a mea culpa for shrugging off concerns about Biden's fitness for office.
'As a reporter, I have a confession to make… I should have pushed harder earlier for more information about Joe Biden's mental and physical well-being and any signs of decline,' he said in a video posted to YouTube.
Cillizza acknowledged that Republicans would regularly contact him during his time at CNN, asking him why he hadn't addressed Biden's decline and how he would 'brush them off' since he had not seen evidence of it.
4 Biden is helped up after falling during the graduation ceremony at the United States Air Force Academy on June 1, 2023.
AFP via Getty Images
'The White House and the people around Joe Biden were absolutely adamant that suggesting anything- asking the question about whether he was in some physical, mental or both decline, was offensive. 'How could you? It's age shaming.' And I think that impacted me at some level,' Cillizza said.
'While I did ask the question from time to time… I didn't really push on it, if I'm being honest. Now, once I left CNN and once it became a little bit more clear to me about Biden's age, I think I did write pretty regularly and talk pretty regularly about how I wasn't sure that this guy was up to it,' he added. 'And then obviously, after the June 27 debate, everybody, including me, was writing and talking about it.'
Fox News Digital reached out to a Biden representative for comment.
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San Francisco Chronicle
18 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
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The Hill
18 minutes ago
- The Hill
Texas Democrat Nicole Collier slams GOP in interview from state House floor
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