Minnesota Democrats defend Biden after report questions memory. Republicans say he’s unfit to serve.

Some Democratic congressmembers from Minnesota defended President Joe Biden on Friday after a special counsel who investigated his handling of classified materials raised concerns about his memory.

Minnesota Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer, on the other hand, said he thinks the report demonstrated Biden is “unfit for the Oval Office.” And Democratic U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips, who’s challenging Biden for the presidential nomination, said the president “cannot continue to serve as our Commander-in-Chief beyond his term.”

Special counsel Robert Hur’s report released Thursday determined that Biden willfully kept and shared classified information while he was a private citizen but concluded he shouldn’t be criminally charged. Hur’s report also included an unflattering assessment of the 81-year-old Biden’s memory that alarmed Republicans and drew condemnation from Democrats who accused the special counsel of pushing a political agenda.

Hur described Biden’s memory as “significantly limited” and wrote that the president “would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” Hur said Biden couldn’t immediately remember the years he served as vice president, nor could he remember exactly when his son, Beau, died.

In a Thursday evening news conference at the White House, Biden angrily pushed back at Hur’s assertions and insisted his memory is fine.

“How in the hell dare he raise that?” Biden told reporters Thursday night, rejecting Hur’s notion that he forgot when his son died. “Frankly, when I was asked the question, I thought to myself, was it any of their damn business?”

Minnesota Democratic U.S. Sen. Tina Smith defended Biden in a statement Friday, calling special counsel Hur “a Trump appointee with a political axe to grind.”

Hur was a U.S. attorney in the Trump administration but was appointed special counsel to this case by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, a Biden appointee.

“Being so blatantly disrespectful as to suggest the President misremembered the death of his son is despicable beyond imagination,” Smith said. “I have 100 percent faith in the President. I spent a full day with Joe Biden less than a month ago – got on the plane with him early in the morning, had a grueling travel day, three different events, and I watched him perform at the very top of his game all the way through it, both in private and in public. Among those who actually see him in action, President Biden’s ability to connect with people and stay on top of policy issues has never been in doubt for a moment.”

In a brief interview Friday night, Democratic U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar said, “I just spent a significant amount of time with the president on Air Force One and we talked about a range of national and international issues. His focus and his command of the issues and recall was very strong.”

Democratic U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum, who represents St. Paul and east-metro suburbs, accused Hur of “taking vile political shots” at Biden in an attempt to “score points for Trump.”

“I was with President Biden yesterday at the Democratic issues conference, where he engaged with us on a wide range of issues and was sharp as a tack. The bottom line: President Biden respects the rule of law and leads our nation well,” McCollum said in a statement Friday.

“MAGA supporters will stop at nothing to distract and divide Americans, and the media must stop taking the bait,” McCollum added.

Minnesota Democratic U.S. Reps. Angie Craig and Ilhan Omar declined to comment.

Republican U.S. Reps. Michelle Fischbach and Brad Finstad did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

But GOP U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber, who represents northeastern Minnesota, said he thinks Hur’s report “confirms that Joe Biden is mentally unfit to serve as President.”

”The President’s mental decline is very sad to watch, and it makes us vulnerable,” Stauber said in a statement. “Our adversaries around the globe see that the President is unwell, and they are taking advantage of this fact. President Biden should not run again. We need strong leadership in the White House.”

Democratic Rep. Phillips, who represents suburbs west of Minneapolis and is running for president, was more critical of Biden than other Democrats. Phillips said the report marks “another sad day for America and particularly for President Biden and his family.”

“The Report simply affirms what most Americans already know, that the President cannot continue to serve as our Commander-in-Chief beyond his term ending January 20, 2025,” Phillips wrote in a text message to the Star Tribune. “Already facing the lowest approval numbers in modern history and losing in each of the key battleground states, this Report has all but handed the 2024 election to Donald Trump if Joe Biden is the Democratic nominee — and I invite fellow Democrats to face the truth.”

Emmer, the third highest-ranking Republican in the U.S. House, issued a joint statement Thursday with other GOP leaders.

They wrote: “Among the most disturbing parts of this report is the Special Counsel’s justification for not recommending charges: namely that the President’s memory had such ‘significant limitations’ that he could not convince a jury that the President held a ‘mental state of willfulness’ that a serious felony requires.

“A man too incapable of being held accountable for mishandling classified information is certainly unfit for the Oval Office.”