Ex-Biden campaign staffer slams former president's team for knowing he was 'not capable,' feels 'lied to'

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Former Biden campaign staffer reveals she feels 'lied to,' slams aides who knew former president 'was not capable'

Ashley Allison, who worked on former President Joe Biden's 2020 campaign, revealed on Wednesday that she felt 'lied to' while discussing former White House chief of staff Ron Klain's scathing account of how Biden seemed during debate preparation.?

Former Biden campaign aide Ashley Allison said Wednesday that she felt "lied to" while discussing revelations from a new book about the 2024 presidential campaign, specifically former Biden White House chief of staff Ron Klain revealing that the former president was exhausted and "out of it" during preparation for the June debate. 

"Do you feel lied to?" CNN host Abby Phillip asked Allison, who worked on the Biden-Harris 2020 campaign. 

Allison said, "Yes. I think I hadn't been around the president before that debate, and I worked for Joe Biden. And if the people around him knew that he was not capable, it is unacceptable to me that they allowed him to go onto that stage. I deserve better as a voter, not even as a Democrat, as a voter and as an American, I do." 

Klain told author Chris Whipple that former President Biden was "fatigued, befuddled, and disengaged" during debate preparation, according to an excerpt from Whipple's new book, as reported by The Guardian. He also reportedly told Whipple that he was "startled" by Biden's exhaustion and said the former president seemed "out of it."

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Former Biden campaign aide Ashley Allison said she felt "lied to" while discussing revelations from a new book about former President Biden and his June debate preparation. (Screenshot/CNN)

Turning to "The View" co-host Ana Navarro for her reaction to the excerpt, Phillip said, "Ana, I know that Joe Biden is a friend. But in this excerpt, the part about the pool, he went off — this is in the middle of the debate prep — went off to the pool, and he took a nap. And that was before the biggest debate of this campaign. That’s not even the governance of the country. So Joe Biden, maybe he has the best intentions. I'm sure that you believe that. But the right decision, it seems pretty unequivocally, is that he should not have run for reelection."

Navarro, a supporter of Biden, said that she had been texting with Klain, who reportedly told her that his remarks were taken out of context. 

She insisted that something happened to the former president in the days leading up to the debate.

"I've known Joe Biden for over 25 years. Certainly, the Joe Biden today is not the Joe Biden of five years ago, 20 years ago, 15 years ago, 25 years ago. It‘s not. But also, I will tell you, and I think that comes out also in the book and the excerpt that I read, something clearly happened that day, around those days, that was not the case the day after. I saw Joe Biden, 24 hours after that debate, here in New York. He was a completely different person," Navarro said. 

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Donald Trump and Joe Biden participate in the first presidential debate of the 2024 elections at CNN's studios in Atlanta on June 27, 2024. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

"I saw Joe Biden when he came to ‘The View’ after he dropped out, and he was a completely different person than what we saw at that debate. What happened around those days, I don't know. And can I tell you something? I don't care, because I want to talk about the future and how we fight Donald Trump and how we get rid of Donald Trump," she said.

Republican strategist Shermichael Singleton referred to it as a cover-up. 

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Allison echoed her earlier point, saying, "What we are hearing right now is unacceptable to me, and I am a Democrat." 

"That night of the debate was terrifying for many, many, it was scary. It hurt my heart, but it was very clear that that might not have been the first time. And I find that I find that unacceptable. I would find that unacceptable in a Trump administration, in an Obama administration, in a Bush administration and in a Biden administration," she added.