MSNBC anchor Joe Scarborough was forced to explain why he claimed former President Joe Biden was the "best Biden ever" in March 2024 on Tuesday (May 20).

Scarborough appeared on the Next Up with Mark Halperin podcast and watched a clip of himself arguing in favor of Biden's cognitive state, to which Halperin asked, Looking back at that, do you say, well, it was misleading to say ‘best Biden ever’ without caveating it and saying, except on the days when he’s not the best Biden ever?”

Scarborough insisted that he never saw the decline personally, giving accounts of multiple meetings with the former president in which he claimed Biden had a better "analysis" on the Russia-Ukraine war privately than during public speeches, to which Halperin pushed back.

“Well, you did! You did, because you saw him address a dead congresswoman, and you saw him in South Carolina," Halperin responded.

“He stumbled and bumbled around, Mark. I mean, yeah, he certainly did," Halperin said before pivoting to President Donald Trump.

"Donald Trump did, other politicians did, and it’s actually the same case as a lot of times when I’ve gone in and talked to Donald Trump," he continued. "We go on to Donald Trump, and I’ve heard the media narrative around Donald Trump, and certainly I’ve been very critical of Donald Trump, and when I leave, I have a better understanding, just like [the Atlantic editor-in-chief] Jeffrey Goldberg did a couple of weeks ago, a better understanding of where Donald Trump is mentally, if Donald Trump is losing it, like people have said through the years or not.”

“And so again, am I going to look at a clip that’s gone viral and pay more attention to that than two and a half, three hours I had with a guy one-on-one going around the world? No, I’m just not going to,” Scarborough added. “Are some of the clips bad? Yeah, they certainly are bad.”

“Put into proper context, I’m just not going to freak out and melt down on one or two clips here and there,” he continued. “And again he bumbled around, and he stumbled around, but he has for quite some time. That didn’t seem to me to get in the way of Joe Biden being able to analyze the most important issues.”

The debate came amid Biden's recent announcement of his advanced prostate cancer diagnosis, as well as speculation of the Democrats purposely downplayed the former president's mental decline during his term. Former Democratic vide presidential candidate Tim Walz recently admitted that his party's failure to acknowledge former President Joe Biden's decline hurt its chances in the 2024 election.

“He made that decision,” Walz said of Biden continuing to serve before ultimately ending his re-election campaign less than four months prior to the 2024 presidential election during an interview with CNN anchor Jake Tapper, who recently wrote a book about Biden's decline, during a live broadcast of State of the Union on April 6.

Walz was among the high profile Democrats to have attempted to downplay Biden's shortcomings after a disastrous performance in the first presidential debate last June.

“Yes, he’s fit for office,” Walz told reporters at the time via the New York Post.

“None of us are denying Thursday night was a bad performance,” he added. “It was a bad get, if you will on that. But it doesn’t impact what I believe — he’s delivering.”

Biden was the oldest president in American history with Trump, 78, his predecessor and successor, later becoming the oldest candidate to be elected in November.

Bourbon and Beyond 2024

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