George Stephanopoulos is facing a MAGA backlash for “gaslighting” the public over Joe Biden’s reported mental decline in the White House.
The ABC News anchor was criticized for reportedly saying Biden’s condition was “heartbreaking up close” after interviewing the president.
The remark was included in a new book by Chris Whipple, Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History.
George Stephanopoulos interviewed Joe Biden after his disastrous TV debate with Donald Trump. Getty Images
Stephanopoulos interviewed Biden in July last year, just weeks after the then-president’s disastrous head–to–head debate performance against Donald Trump.
Days later, the anchor told a passerby in New York that he didn’t think Biden “can serve four more years.”
After footage of the comment went viral online, Stephanopoulos said: “Earlier today, I responded to a question from a passerby. I shouldn’t have.” An ABC News spokesperson also issued a statement, saying, “George expressed his own point of view and not the position of ABC News.”
Weeks later, Biden dropped his re-election campaign amid concern over his health.
Now MAGA supporters claim Stephanopoulos was part of a media conspiracy to hide Biden’s deteriorating mental state while in office.
“The media and Democrats tried gaslighting us for 4 years that everything was fine despite what our own eyes were seeing… never let them forget,” popular MAGA outlet @LibsofTikTok posted on Wednesday on X.
New details from Biden’s mental decline from Chris Whipple’s new book, Uncharted:George Stephanopoulos described Biden as “heartbreaking up close” during an interview after Biden’s disastrous 2024 debate against Trump.
The media and Democrats tried gaslighting us for 4 years… pic.twitter.com/rwNH3h0gjv
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) April 9, 2025
“If only they cared to publicly scrutinize Biden WHEN we was president. In those four years, not ONE of these people seriously spoke up about this despite concerns from the American people from all sides of the aisle. It’s not just the media that has no integrity – it’s anyone who was near him or observed him but didn’t have the courage or moral fortitude to say ANYTHING,” wrote Tina Talks Politics.
Speaking on CNN on Tuesday, Whipple suggested Biden’s inner circle “were really lost in a kind of fog of denial and delusion.”
“The closest advisers to Biden believed, despite all the evidence, that Joe Biden was capable of running for reelection, of winning and of serving another four years. Now it was really delusional.
“This was different from a cover-up. It wasn’t a Watergate-style cover-up. It wasn’t a grand conspiracy as Karl Rove has described it,” he added.
