Jen Psaki’s recent comments on President Joe Biden’s decline—delivered with both caution and candor—have reopened a thorny debate about media accountability, political loyalty, and whether the public was shielded from the truth in the run-up to the 2024 election.
In an interview on Semafor’s Mixed Signals podcast, the former White House press secretary said she never saw signs of Biden’s deterioration during her tenure in the West Wing. “I never saw that person — not a single time, and I was in the Oval Office every day,” Psaki said, referencing the president’s now-infamous debate performance that ultimately led to his withdrawal from the race.
Psaki left the administration in May 2022, meaning she hadn’t seen Biden in person for more than two and a half years leading up to the election. Still, she maintained that her experience at the White House never suggested the cognitive decline that became unmistakable during the June 2024 debate—an event that triggered a media firestorm, donor revolt, and mounting pressure within the Democratic Party for Biden to step aside, which he ultimately did in July, endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris as his successor.
She lied for years on end and now wants to pretend she has the moral authority to “pushback” on the people she maligned for telling the truth.
Insane hubris. https://t.co/ZelwT2WqUA
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) May 6, 2025
One of Psaki’s most revealing moments came when asked whether the White House had orchestrated a cover-up regarding Biden’s mental state. Psaki rejected the term outright.
“‘Cover-up’ is a very loaded term,” she said, associating it with major historical scandals like Watergate and Vietnam. “I think it’s a bit of a dangerous term.”
But as books like Chris Whipple’s Uncharted begin to shed light on the internal dynamics of Biden’s campaign and White House, that line between cautious messaging and active concealment is coming under increasing scrutiny. According to Whipple, Biden’s advisers “convinced themselves in spite of the evidence” that the president could serve another term—a dangerous case of willful denial that likely misled the American public.
Even Psaki, who now prepares to take over MSNBC’s 9 p.m. time slot from Tuesday to Friday, conceded that the media may have dropped the ball.
“Maybe the media missed a lot,” she admitted. “There were major stories and moments missed.”
She noted, however, that any efforts by journalists to dig into Biden’s health were muddied by persistent right-wing attacks from as early as 2019, many of which were exaggerated or politically motivated. In Psaki’s view, this “cry wolf” effect dulled the media’s reflexes during the critical period of 2023–2024, even as real issues emerged behind the scenes.
Still, the tide of introspection is rising. Axios reporter Alex Thompson, during his remarks at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, bluntly told the press corps: “We should have done better.” The comment earned attention as one of the few acknowledgments from within the beltway press that a major story—Biden’s decline—was underreported until it exploded on the debate stage.
Psaki, ever the political realist, expressed regret that Biden’s decades-long career may now be overshadowed by how it ended.
“I think his legacy will be tainted by how the 2024 race played out,” she said.
Meanwhile, her successor Karine Jean-Pierre continued to dismiss footage of Biden’s struggles as “cheap fakes” well into 2024, a phrase that has since become emblematic of what many now view as institutional gaslighting.
