Special counsel's report questioning Biden's memory sparks political firestorm

tonight President Biden ignoring questions about that explosive special counsel report after last night disputing the report's conclusion that he willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency these assertions are not only misleading they're just plain wrong special councel Robert her found no criminal charges are warranted today the White House slamming hers report comparing it to the Justice Department's classified documents investigation of former vice preside

nt Mike Pence it was a brief one Page Letter to Mike Pence but in this case there was a 15-month investigation he reached the inevitable conclusion based on the facts and the evidence that there was no case here Justice Department officials tell NBC News her included damaging details referring to what he called the president's diminished faculties and faulty memory because that was a key reason her did not recommend charges arguing a jury would be unlikely to convict because President Biden woul

d present present himself as a sympathetic well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory I'm well-meaning and I'm an elderly man and I know what the hell I'm doing at that hastily called news conference my memory is fine the president became most heated singling out scathing details in the report that during his interview Mr Biden did not remember when he was vice president and that he did not remember even within several years when his son Bo died how in the hell dare he raise that frankly when I

was asked the question I thought to myself wasn't any of their damn business I don't need anyone to remind me when he passed away but moments later reigniting questions about his memory referring to the president of Egypt as the president of Mexico when talking about the crisis in Gaza the president of Mexico CC did not want to open up the gate to allow humanitarian material to get in it's the latest in a series of flubs just this week saying he recently spoke with French president midan who di

ed decades ago mean from Germany I mean from France looked at me and said uh said you know what why how long you back for and appearing to forget the name of Hamas until a reporter said it there's been a response from the uh there's been a response from the opposition but um yes I'm sorry from Hamas the White House says President Biden is not the only political leader who misspeaks and rejects the report's characterization of the president's memory we do not believe that part of the report lives

in reality the vice president is also slamming the special counsel the president's demeanor in that report was characterized could not be more wrong on the fact and clearly politically motivated our latest NBC News poll shows voter concerns with both President Biden and Republican front runner Donald Trump who recently confused Nikki Haley and Nancy Pelosi speaking about January 6th like Nicki Haley is in charge of security 76% of Americans have major or moderate concerns about the president's

mental and physical health 48% have those same concerns about Mr Trump and Peter you have new reporting about how the White House will try to counter the special councel ler AIDS here telling me that they're going to send out people who meet with President Biden regularly to talk about their personal experiences with him and to rebut what the special Council said ler thanks for watching stay updated about breaking news and top stories on the NBC News app or follow us on social media