WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden said in an interview aired Sunday on CBS he has not been briefed on the classified documents federal agents retrieved last month from former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate.
Biden told “60 Minutes” he hasn’t “asked for the specifics of those documents” because he doesn’t want to get involved in the Justice Department’s investigation.
“I agreed I would not tell them what to do and not, in fact, engage in telling them how to prosecute or not,” he said.
Biden has previously said he had “zero” advance notice before the FBI searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence. Agents seized 11,000 documents, including 54 marked “secret” and 18 “top secret.”
His comments to CBS News were his most extensive about the documents.
Biden said he has “not personally spoken to anyone” about what national security secrets are in the documents. But, he added, “I’m sure my administration is aware of all of that, and so is the National Security Council.”
Biden also said he wondered how such sensitive documents could have ended up at Mar-a-Lago, calling it “totally irresponsible.”
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Other notable comments Biden made to CBS included:
COVID-19 pandemic
Biden said the COVID-19 pandemic is over. “We still have a problem with COVID. We’re still doing a lotta work on it,” he said. “But the pandemic is over.”
Biden said, “no one’s wearing masks” and “everybody seems to be in pretty good shape.”
At a press briefing last week, the head of the World Health Organization said the pandemic could be at a turning point. “We are not there yet, but the end is in sight,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said
Re-election Bid?
Biden called it “much too early” to decide if he will run for reelection in 2024.
“Look, my intention as I said to begin with is that I would run again,” Biden said. “But it’s just an intention. But is it a firm decision that I run again? That remains to be seen.”
Defending Taiwan
As he has before, Biden said U.S. military forces would defend Taiwan if it’s attacked by China. After Biden made a similar comment during a trip to Asia in May, he nonetheless said the U.S. policy of “strategic ambiguity” toward Taiwan had not changed.
Similarly, CBS said a White House official likewise stressed after the interview that U.S. policy has not changed.
