Joe Biden stood before the country at that June 2024 debate and couldn't finish a sentence.
His lawyers have since spent two years in federal court blocking 70 hours of his own recorded voice from reaching the public.
A federal judge just handed the Heritage Foundation a major win – and Biden's team is scrambling to stop what comes next.
Heritage Foundation FOIA Win Forces Release of Biden Audio Recordings
Joe Biden recorded 70 hours of conversations with ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer while producing his 2017 memoir Promise Me, Dad.
Those recordings ended up at the DOJ after Special Counsel Robert Hur obtained them during his investigation into Biden's mishandling of classified documents.
Hur's February 2024 report described Biden as a "sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory" – a man who couldn't remember when his own son died or what years he was Vice President, who read classified notebook entries aloud to Zwonitzer, and whose recorded conversations were "painfully slow."
Biden was never charged, but Hur concluded the evidence showed Biden "willfully retained" classified materials after his vice presidency.
The Heritage Foundation's Oversight Project filed a FOIA request for all records Hur relied on for that final report.
Biden's DOJ stonewalled them.
The Trump DOJ reversed course in 2026 and authorized the release – with redactions – sending Biden scrambling to court as a private citizen to block the government from releasing them.
U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, appointed by Trump in his first term, denied Biden's bid for a preliminary injunction.
"Biden has not identified any public harm that would arise absent an injunction in this case," Friedrich wrote in her 26-page ruling.
The judge found Biden's privacy interests – while real – were "mitigated by extensive redactions" and outweighed by "the significant public interest in the disclosure of the redacted Zwonitzer Materials."
Biden Ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer Deleted Files Before the Classified Documents Subpoena
The mainstream press skipped this part: Zwonitzer deleted digital audio files after learning of Hur's appointment – before he received a subpoena.
Federal technicians recovered the deleted recordings, but portions of three files appeared missing and a fourth appeared partially overwritten with a separate recording.
Zwonitzer was never charged for deleting the files.
The House Judiciary Committee voted to hold him in contempt of Congress.
Despite Biden's lawyers exhausting every available legal argument, Friedrich ordered the tapes handed to the Heritage Foundation and Congress – though she issued a temporary three-week stay to allow the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals time to decide whether to intervene.
Biden's team says he cooperated with Hur on the condition the recordings would stay private.
Friedrich's answer, in plain English: the public interest wins.
Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg Cannot Escape Biden Cognitive Decline Cover-Up
These tapes come from 2016 and 2017 – years before Biden announced his 2020 campaign, years before Democrat leaders told America he was ready to lead the free world.
Hur's report already established what's in them – a man struggling to read his own notes, straining to recall basic events – and every Democrat who vouched for Biden's fitness from 2020 through 2024 now has to answer for it.
Kamala Harris has the biggest problem of all.
Harris is the 2028 Democrat frontrunner, and she spent four years as Biden's Vice President – the person constitutionally positioned to invoke the 25th Amendment if she believed the President was unfit.
She never did.
When BBC interviewer Laura Kuenssberg asked Harris directly about Biden's cognitive decline in October 2025, Harris said she reflected on whether she should have urged him not to run – but insisted her concern was only about his "capacity to campaign," not his "capacity to be president."
The man couldn't finish a debate sentence. Harris called that a campaigning problem.
Pete Buttigieg has the same problem.
Buttigieg sat in Biden's cabinet for four full years as Secretary of Transportation – now making trips to Iowa, building his donor network, and fielding questions about what he knew and when.
His answer so far: "Every time I needed something from him from the West Wing, I got it."
That answer satisfies exactly nobody.
Seventy hours of audio from 2016 and 2017 show Biden was mentally deteriorating before he ever set foot in the Oval Office – which means Harris, Buttigieg, and every other Democrat who vouched for his fitness spent four years lying to the country, or were too invested in their own careers to say a word.
James Carville said: "Of course, all of the people who never said anything – now Pete Buttigieg is saying, 'Well, it would have been better if he hadn't run for reelection.' Well, f—, say something when it meant something."
The Heritage Foundation is about to give America the receipts.
Sources:
- "Trump Judge Deals Biden Blow Over Heritage Foundation Suit for Ghostwriter Tapes," Newsweek, June 19, 2026.
- Jeff Charles, "Federal Judges Just Ruled on Biden's Request to Conceal Ghostwriter Tapes," Townhall, June 19, 2026.
- Ward Clark, "Major New Transparency Win: Biden Ghostwriter Audio Tapes Coming Out," RedState, June 19, 2026.
- "Judge sides with DOJ to release Biden audio for memoir to Heritage Foundation," Washington Examiner, June 19, 2026.
- "Biden Just Got More Time to Conceal Tapes of Interview With Ghostwriter," Townhall, June 20, 2026.
- "Democratic presidential hopefuls grapple with Biden's legacy as 2028 race begins," Fox News, May 2025.
- "Pete Buttigieg's 2028 Ambitions May Be Undermined by New Biden Book," Newsweek, May 2025.
- Nick Arama, "Hoo Boy: Interviewer Nails Kamala on Biden Cognitive Decline Question," RedState, October 26, 2025.