Former Top Obama Aide Admits Why He Didn't Acknowledge Biden's Decline

Pod Save America co-host Jon Lovett, who previously served as a top aide in former President Barack Obama's administration, admitted that he withheld concerns about former President Joe Biden's physical decline during his 2024 campaign because he wanted him "to f**king 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,’” Lovett said during an appearance on Jon Stewart's The Weekly Show podcast alongside his Pod Save America co-host Jon Favreau, who had formerly worked as the director of speechwriting for former President Obama. “A, because I didn’t know exactly what was going on behind the scenes, but B, if Joe Biden is the candidate, I want him to f**king win.”

Lovett said he thought expressing his concerns would be weaponized by Biden's political opponents, fearing that the liberal-leaning Pod Save America hosts would be "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 reelect him,” he added.

Lovett, Favreau and their Pod Save America co-host Dan Pfeiffer are included in an anecdote from new book Original Sin in which CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios' Alex Thompson cover Biden's decline and his administration's attempt to keep it private. The podcast trio was described as being "deeply disturbed" after discussions with Biden at the White House on the night of April 26, 2024, with Tapper and Thompson describing the then-president as rambling and "incoherent."