President Biden’s former chief of staff, who repeatedly tried to convince skeptical voters the president was fit to lead, is now coming clean about him being “unaware” and “exhausted” during debate preps.

Ron Klain’s back-stabs come in a book set to be published next week and are in sharp contrast to the rosy statements he was repeating about the president’s health at the time. He now claims Mr. Biden was “out of it” and could not focus ahead of his disastrous debate with President Trump last summer.

Mr. Klain, who had worked with Mr. Biden for decades, came to Camp David in June to help the president prepare for the debate. With apparently newly-found clarity, Mr. Klain now tells reporter Chris Whipple that Mr. Biden “didn’t know what Trump had been saying and couldn’t grasp what the back and forth was.”

The Guardian received a copy of Mr. Whipple’s upcoming book, “Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History,” and first reported the quotes. In the book, Mr. Klain claims that the president also “didn’t really understand what his argument was on inflation” and “had nothing to say about a second term other than finish the job.”

Mr. Klain now even says Mr. Biden left one preparation early and fell asleep by the pool. Mr. Biden had a hoarse voice, coughed, appeared exhausted, and failed to clearly answer questions at the June 27 debate. It was devastating for a candidate trying to convince skeptical voters that he wasn’t too old for the job.

The campaign blamed the president’s performance on a bad cold but there were immediate concerns over a possible decline in his cognitive abilities. Some prominent Democrats started calling for Mr. Biden to drop out of the race. The calls grew until he finally made the decision to bow out.

While Mr. Klain is now painting a bleak picture of Mr. Biden’s mental and physical condition, he was quite upbeat about the president’s health in public in the days after the debate.

On July 12, Mr. Klain posted results of a poll on X showing Mr. Biden leading the race and stated, “It’s time to end the freak out and unite behind the Democratic nominee.”

“He’s up to the job, he’s capable of governing,” Mr. Klain told MSNBC the same day. In an interview with New York Magazine Mr. Klain said, “He is sharp as a tack. He’s able to govern, he’s able to lead.”

The new comments show it was all a charade used to try to prop up support for the declining octogenarian president. They didn’t help. Mr. Biden dropped out of the race on July 21, 2024 and threw his support behind Vice President Harris. She lost the election to President Trump 107 days later. 

Mr. Biden plans to write his own book to tell his version of the end of his presidency, according to NBC.