Joe Biden, 81, has been forced to defend his cognitive state after a special counsel’s report into the unauthorised storage of classified documents – which concluded that “no criminal charges are warranted” – described the US president as “an elderly man with a poor memory”.
The language is damning and the report is just the latest example of the vicious tenor of US politics. The special counsel Robert Hur saw fit to ask Biden if he could remember what year his son had died, a question that Biden told a press conference he had found shocking: “How in the hell dare he raise that?” he asked.
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