Whoopi Goldberg said Democrats should have kept concerns about President Joe Biden’s apparent cognitive decline private rather than airing them publicly, arguing that doing otherwise turned the issue into a spectacle that hurt the party’s chances in the 2024 election.
Goldberg made the comments Tuesday on ABC’s The View during a segment prompted by an excerpt from Vice President Kamala Harris’s memoir, 107 Days, in which Harris describes the “recklessness” of Biden’s re‑election bid and the fallout after his widely criticized debate performance against then‑President Donald Trump. The excerpt and subsequent coverage highlighted calls from some public figures for Biden to step aside, including an open letter from actor George Clooney and later books examining Biden’s fitness to run.
"The divisive, for me, is if the Democrats had kept their mouths shut and took care of this in‑house as opposed to making it a public spectacle, I think people would've had a better feel about it," Goldberg said on the show. She added that revisiting the decisions now does little to change the outcome. "People love to go back and say what we should've done. We should've run a better campaign. People wanted to hear what they heard. They got what they wanted. I don't understand why we gotta re‑litigate it. It happened. And now we're all sitting in it. And it's everybody's fault."
Alyssa Farah Griffin, a co‑host and former Trump White House communications director who has been critical of the Biden administration, pushed back. She said concerns about Biden’s age should not be dismissed as mere ageism and pointed to what she described as practical consequences for governance. "I do think that we're afraid of 'isms' in this country and we should be. Sexism, racism, those are all horrible things. Ageism is a horrible thing. But there's also biology and science and stats," Griffin said. She noted that Democrats had lost several lawmakers while in office and warned that a narrow Senate majority made every vacancy consequential for the party's ability to pass or block legislation.
"You could've had better numbers if you were willing to say it might be time to step aside," Griffin said, framing her remarks around electability and legislative stakes.
The exchange came as debate continues within the Democratic Party and among political commentators about how parties should handle questions about a candidate’s fitness to serve, particularly when the concerns are both medical and political in nature. Months after the 2024 election, which resulted in a Republican victory, discussions about Biden’s decision to run and the party’s response have prompted books and commentary from journalists and public figures examining the campaign and its aftermath, including a recent book by CNN anchor Jake Tapper.
The View, which airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Eastern on ABC, devoted part of Tuesday’s episode to the broader conversation prompted by Harris’s forthcoming memoir, 107 Days, which is scheduled for release later this month. The on‑air debate illustrated divergent views within and outside the Democratic coalition about transparency, respect for privacy, and the political risks of publicly confronting a sitting president’s fitness for office.