Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said Friday that former President Joe Biden did not speak with him a “single time” during his term in the Oval Office. New details have emerged about White House aides’ attempts to hide Biden’s declining health by keeping him in the dark from the public and notable elites in Washington, D.C., Axios reported, citing excerpts of the soon-to-be released book, “Original Sin.” Cruz said during the latest “Verdict with Ted Cruz” that himself and many other Republican senators did not speak to Biden throughout his entire presidency, which he pointed out is highly unusual. “So look, in four years of the Biden presidency, I’m in the Senate the whole time. How many times do you think I spoke with Joe Biden while he was president?” Cruz asked his co-host Ben Ferguson. “Zero … not a single time and that is bizarre.” LISTEN: The Texas senator said it is commonplace for the president to work with members of the House and Senate in both parties. He stated that he had spoken with former President Barack Obama on several occasions while he served his two terms. “And by the way, when I say I didn’t speak with [Biden] for four years, that was true of virtually every Republican senator,” Cruz continued. “The Democrats talked to him a little more, so they talked to him a little more. When the Senate’s in session, the Republicans have lunch together every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and so we talk at lunch. It’s a working lunch and it’s very productive. We would sit at lunch and talk about how weird it was that none of us had spoken to Biden, had been to the White House to see him. And they all knew him, they were clearly hiding him.” Republican Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy, who did see Biden in person, told Cruz that when Biden invited him to the White House, he began telling stories that happened several decades ago. White House staff reportedly panicked and attempted to rush Biden out the door, though the then-president did not listen and continued telling stories for 30 minutes. While president, Biden held the fewest number of press conferences than any of his predecessors in the last century besides former Presidents Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon. He frequently refused to take questions from the press at the end of events and often picked reporters who were chosen ahead of time. As more concerns sprung up about Biden’s fitness to serve another term, Democrats quietly pushed the then-president to engage more frequently with the public in order to quell voters’ doubts about his mental capacity. In “Original Sin,” a book written by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’ Alex Thompson, it notes that White House aides privately considered putting Biden in a wheelchair due to his halting walk and spinal degeneration, Axios reported. His aides often attributed Biden’s halting walk to a fracture he suffered in his foot in November 2020, though his personal physician said that the fractures had completely healed. After Biden’s disastrous performance during the June 27 debate, the White House and corporate media rushed to attribute the then-president’s raspy voice and confused state to a cold. Before the 2024 election, Tapper scolded people, including Lara Trump, for suggesting that Biden suffered from a “cognitive decline.” Thompson blamed the media for covering up Biden’s decline during his appearance at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
