Democrats try their darndest to defend Biden, but Robert Hur testimony reaffirms he's too old

If you didn’t spend four hours of your life Tuesday watching House Republicans and Democrats pontificate while grilling former special counsel Robert Hur, I’ll sum it up for you.

“Your guy is bad.”

“Well, your guy is even worse!”

That also sums up the 2024 presidential race, now that President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have officially clinched their respective party nominations.

It’s going to be a long year.

Hur appeared before the House Judiciary Committee to answer questions about his report looking into Biden’s mishandling of classified documents.

The report, released last month, caused a stir not so much for what it said about Biden putting national security at risk, but for what it stated about the president’s mental fitness: “We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

Biden's bad look: Special counsel says Biden is 'elderly man with a poor memory.' And he's the Democrats' guy?

That’s the crux of why Hur declined to criminally charge Biden. And try as they might, Democrats didn’t do anything to change that narrative.

If anything, they confirmed it.

'I did not exonerate him'

Republicans on the committee seemed miffed that Hur chose not to prosecute Biden. After all, Jack Smith, the special counsel who investigated Trump’s mishandling of classified documents, did slap the former president with charges.

Hur patiently outlined differences in the cases, as he did in the report, but he kept coming back to the reasons why he didn’t charge Biden: his memory and how he’d appear before a jury.

It wasn’t that Biden had done nothing wrong. The report made this clear: “Our investigation uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen.”

That didn’t stop Democrats from trying to put words into Hur’s mouth.

The most blatant attempt to paint Biden as blameless came from Washington state progressive Rep. Pramila Jayapal. But it backfired spectacularly.

Jayapal asserted that Hur’s “lengthy, expensive and independent investigation resulted in a complete exoneration of President Joe Biden.”

Hur jumped in and said “exoneration” is not a word he used in his report.

“You exonerated him,” Jayapal said again.

“I did not exonerate him,” said Hur, remaining calm as he did throughout the hearing.

Democrats' other tactic: Make it all about Trump

Democrats had a two-pronged approach in their questions for Hur. When they weren’t focusing on how Biden wasn’t charged (unlike Trump), they took to pointing out Trump’s flaws.

If you can’t make your candidate look good, make the other guy look worse.

It didn’t work, though. It just made Democrats look desperate.

Biden's State of the Union was decent. It's not enough to make voters forget he's old.

For instance, at one point, they played a montage of Trump clips attempting to make him look as forgetful as Biden.

And then there was the gratuitous name-calling, with committee members labeling Trump as a “rapist” (factually incorrect) and “former white supremacist in chief.”

Democrats also repeated their tired calls to protect “democracy,” which was not the point of the hearing.

Full transcript adds a blow to Biden

Ahead of the hearing, the the House Judiciary Committee released the full transcript of Hur’s five-hour interview with Biden.

Democrats attempted to play that up as a win for them, but it confirmed the conclusions Hur made about Biden’s acuity. The transcript highlights multiple instances of Biden’s confusion over when momentous events happened, from when he announced his candidacy for president to when Trump got elected.

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Perhaps the most damning revelation is in relation to his son’s death. In a news conference after Hur’s report came out, Biden angrily disputed that he didn't know when Beau Biden died – and said the question wasn’t “any of their damn business.”

It wasn’t Hur who brought it up, though. It was Biden. And the transcript shows he couldn’t recall within several years when his son died of brain cancer.

The only one who came out looking good from Tuesday’s hearing was Hur, who opened his testimony with his Korean parents’ inspiring immigration story.

Hur’s life is a testimony to the American dream. Perhaps he's the one who should be running for president.

Ingrid Jacques is a columnist at USA TODAY. Contact her at ijacques@usatoday.com or on X, formerly Twitter: @Ingrid_Jacques

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Is Biden too old? Hur hearing makes age concerns even more urgent