Chris Cillizza, the former CNN reporter, published a new post at his Substack yesterday, pointing to yet more evidence that Joe Biden’s decline is real and his handlers are still trying to hide it. He posted a series of tweets about the story.
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1/ In the final year of his presidency, Joe Biden’s top aides — and his wife, Jill —hid him from the media and the public in ways that we are only now beginning to fully grasp. pic.twitter.com/cwvukaL0Ac— Chris Cillizza (@ChrisCillizza) July 9, 2025
Sigh.
Are “we” only now beginning to fully grasp this? Speak for yourself, Chris. Some of us grasped the meaning of the basement campaign back in 2020 and were pretty locked in on Biden’s mental decline by 2022 at the latest. I guess the “we” in this case refers to mainstream journalists who did everything they could to ignore the obvious.
2/ On Tuesday, we got another look at how pervasive the effort to keep Biden from speaking extemporaneously really was — and how it has continued even after his time in the White House.
— Chris Cillizza (@ChrisCillizza) July 9, 2025
He follows this with an excerpt published yesterday from a new book titled “2024: How Trump Retook the White House and Democrats Lost America,”
For months, as I worked on a book about the 2024 presidential election, I made multiple requests for an interview with Mr. Biden. One of my co-authors had sat down with President-elect Donald J. Trump, and we felt it was critical to talk to Mr. Biden. But the former president’s aides said he was working on a memoir, and that would conflict with my book.
Yet when I reached Mr. Biden on his cellphone in late March, he answered and agreed to talk…
When I asked if he had any regrets about dropping out of the presidential race, Mr. Biden said, in a detached tone, “No, not now. I don’t spend a lot of time on regrets.” Then he hung up because he was boarding an Amtrak train.
My brief conversation with Mr. Biden prompted a cascade of concern among his top aides. One screamed at me for calling the former president directly. Others texted furiously, trying to figure out how I had obtained Mr. Biden’s phone number.
Subsequent calls went to voicemail and within a couple days the number had been disconnected. The author concludes:
The swift reaction to my call reflects the insularity that became a defining feature of the final stages of Mr. Biden’s political career.
Again, no. This wasn’t the defining feature of the “final stages” of Biden’s career, it was the defining feature of his campaign starting in 2020. Way back in June 2019, David Axelrod was criticizing Biden’s hide-from-the-media strategy.
Biden hasn’t appeared on national television since the day after he officially declared his run for president. Since then, the campaign has repeatedly declined invitations from television and cable news outlets. One network source told The Daily Beast that over the past several months, Biden has been offered a number of appearances on MSNBC, including telephone interviews. And a CNN insider said the network reached out to the former vice president in the months before he even launched his campaign, inquiring whether he would be interested in participating in upcoming town hall events.
In addition to missing many of the forums packed with 2020 Democratic prospects, Biden was the only 2020 Democratic presidential candidate to decline an interview by The New York Times as part of its package this week comparing the various candidates (and wouldn’t respond to questions when asked why he didn’t participate).
By June of 2020, even Joy Behar had noticed:
Behar took her usual shots at Trump on Thursday morning, but she veered off course when she dragged Biden for limiting his media appearances amid the COVID-19 pandemic. “Biden needs to be on television more,” said the liberal co-host. “He needs to be talking, he needs to tell us what his plan is going forward, how he’s going to fix the mess that Trump has put us in — that Trump and the Republican Congress has put us in.”
“In that case, maybe he can stay in the basement and just talk to us. But he’s going to have to step up, Biden,” she continued.
But after he was elected the same pattern continued. Even when he offered to answer questions, his staff cut him off.
This is pretty amazing.
Biden actually says he’ll take questions.
Obviously that was not the game plan because the White House went right to a graphic instead.
Not sure what went on here, but it looks like a real fear of unscripted Biden.
pic.twitter.com/cvogy5mjft— Tim Murtaugh (@TimMurtaugh) March 4, 2021
As a rule, Biden did not speak to the media one-on-one. Politico called it a “distinct feature” of his White House.
President JOE BIDEN is not doing one-on-one interviews.
In the first nine months of his presidency, he has participated in just 10, none since Labor Day.
It is a distinct feature of this White House.
At this point in their presidencies, BARACK OBAMA had participated in 131 interviews and DONALD TRUMP had participated in 57 (16 of which were within the friendly confines of Fox News), according to presidential watcher and former CBS White House reporter MARK KNOLLER.
I could go on but you get the idea. It’s simply absurd to claim that Biden being hidden from the media is something that is only now coming to light. Everyone left, right and center knew this was happening as far back as 2019. That’s why it was often called the “basement campaign.”
Anyway, here’s Chris Cillizza coming to the same revelation that many of us had five or six years ago. By George, I think they are hiding Biden from the media!
5/ What other explanation is there for not only berating the reporter — God forbid he try to get in touch with Biden to get his side of the story on 2024! — but also taking the extreme step of getting rid of Biden’s phone number?
— Chris Cillizza (@ChrisCillizza) July 9, 2025
I can’t improve upon this reaction:
Chris have you ever asked yourself why you the journalist is always just magically somehow the least observant person?
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) July 9, 2025
