Democratic presidential hopefuls grapple with Biden's legacy as 2028 race begins

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Buttigieg talks Biden’s health, Trump jabs and 2028 rumors

Former Biden Transportation Secy. Pete Buttigieg speaks with reporters after headlining a town hall with veterans in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which sparked more 2028 speculation.

It was the first question thrown at potential 2028 Democratic presidential contender Pete Buttigieg as he briefly met with reporters following a town hall with veterans and military families in Iowa this week:

"Did President Joe Biden experience cognitive decline while in office?" Buttigieg was asked.

"Every time I needed something from him from the West Wing, I got it," answered Buttigieg, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate who served four years as Secretary of Transportation in the Biden administration.

After a second reporter followed up, asking: "Would the party have been better off if he had just not run for re-election?" Buttigieg answered: "Maybe. Right now, with the benefit of hindsight, I think most people would agree that that’s the case."

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Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg headlines a veterans' town hall in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on May 13, 2025. Buttigieg's appearance sparked speculation he may make another presidential run in 2028. (Fox News - Paul Steinhauser)

Welcome to the 2028 White House race pre-season, where Democrats mulling a presidential run are starting to take the earliest of steps.

And as they do, they're facing an initial gauntlet – questions about former President Joe Biden's mental acuity during his final years in office and whether Democrats should have been more strident earlier in the 2024 election cycle in calling on Biden to abandon his bid for a second term in the White House.

"I think that is one of the top things that they do want to know about," longtime New Hampshire-based radio host Chris Ryan told Fox News, as he pointed to his listeners on his popular morning news/talk program.

"The Democratic voters are still trying to sort through what happened and why," said Ryan, who has interviewed scores of White House hopefuls over the years.

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How the presidential hopefuls answer these questions will be an early test of their truthfulness in the eyes of voters who had serious concerns over whether Biden was mentally and physically up for another four years handling the world's most grueling job.

But Ryan noted that "it’s different for each potential candidate based on their level of proximity to President Biden."

The grilling of potential 2028 contenders and other Democrats comes as Biden's condition is once again making headlines, courtesy of excerpts from a new book, "Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again," which offers claims of a White House cover-up of the then-president's alleged cognitive decline.

Biden dropped out of the White House race last July, one month after a disastrous debate performance with now-President Donald Trump that sparked a chorus of calls from fellow Democrats for the then-81-year-old president to end his re-election bid. 

President Joe Biden dropped his re-election bid less than a month after a disastrous debate performance against former President Donald Trump in Atlanta on June 27, 2024. (Kevin D. Liles for The Washington Post via Getty Images) (Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images)

He was replaced at the top of the ticket by then-Vice President Kamala Harris, who ended up losing November's presidential election to Trump. Democrats also suffered down ballot, losing control of the Senate and failing to win back the House majority from the Republicans.

During an appearance on ABC's "The View" last week, Biden pushed back against accusations that he had suffered significant cognitive decline during the final year of his presidency.

Rep. Ro Khanna of California was a leading supporter and surrogate on the campaign trail for Biden during the 2024 election cycle. After last June’s debate, as a trickle of Democrats urging Biden to step aside turned into a steady stream, Khanna likened the embattled president to Rocky Balboa—the underdog boxer of big-screen legend.

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"To rebuild trust, Democrats must be honest. In light of the facts that have come out, Joe Biden should not have run for reelection, and we should have had an open primary," Khanna wrote in a social media post.

Khanna, in a statement, said, "I have always admired Biden’s resilience and the grit he has shown after the loss of his son — and often compared that strength to Rocky. I was a surrogate for the president of my own party whose policies I backed."

"But obviously we did not have the full picture, and in hindsight it is painfully obvious that President Biden should have made the patriotic decision not to run," Khanna said.

Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California is interviewed by Fox News Digital at Yale University, on April 15, 2025, in New Haven, Conn. (Fox News - Paul Steinhauser)

Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, another Democratic lawmaker who vouched for Biden last year, said that "there's no doubt about it" when asked by Politico whether Biden had experienced cognitive decline. "The debate is whether it was enough that it compromised his ability to act as chief executive."

Murphy, who is viewed as a potential 2028 contender, said that Biden staying in the 2024 race as long as he did was detrimental to the Democrats.

"I mean, isn’t that self-evident? We lost," he said. "Obviously, in retrospect, we should have done something different."

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But Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, another possible White House candidate who was a top 2024 surrogate for Biden, said in a CNN interview this week when asked about Biden's cognitive abilities: "As a governor in a state halfway across the country who was working her tail off, 160 stops on a bus tour that I had lined through swing states, I was busy working. I was busy doing the voter connection and registration, and so can't speak to that directly." 

"I didn't see the president frequently."

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer stands for a Fox News Digital interview, on July 25, 2024, in Durham, New Hampshire. (Fox News - Paul Steinhauser)

But she added that "it does make me question a lot of the things I thought I knew over the course of the last year and a half."

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While the potential contenders are answering questions concerning Biden in different ways, there is one consensus.

"We're not in a position to wallow in hindsight. We've got to get ready for some fundamental tests of the future of this country and this party," Buttigieg noted.