It is kind of -- there's an interesting thing.
There's the obvious question, and then there's the question about the question, and then there's the context.
So, there're three questions.
The first question is, is Joe Biden too old to be president, right?
That's the one that came up in earnest in the last couple of days.
The second is, is it right for the press to talk about this issue as an issue all the time?
And that we're seeing that in our profession, people sort of going at each other over whether this is even a relevant topic.
And the third issue is, how did it come to pass that the presumptive Republican nominee facing 91 felon accounts adjudicated in a civil court as a rapist and on and on and on, is running against a president who walks really slowly and we are focused so much on Joe Biden's qualifications as opposed to Donald Trump's call -- I'm not saying -- JOHN DICKERSON: Who's we?
Who's we?
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes, we, it's me.
No, no, no, I mean, I think there's a lot of -- there's a meta question in here, John, and you have to answer it now, because you provoked me.
Is it a legitimate issue to talk about his age?
JOHN DICKERSON: Of course, it's a legitimate issue to talk about his age and to talk about Donald Trump's age.
But the really important presidential issue that came out of this report about Joe Biden's handling of classified materials to me is what does it say about the behavior of Joe Biden and Donald Trump?
They are both accused of similar things, Trump with many more classified documents and more seriously classified.
To me, the most important question from a presidential perspective is, what's the most recent behavior tell us about how they would behave in office.
And that's with respect to what happened when they found out they had these documents.
Biden's team found out they had the documents and went to the National Archives and said, oops, we have these, please come investigate.
They participated willingly in the investigation and Joe Biden sat down for five hours.
By contrast, former President Trump didn't tell anybody he had these materials he wasn't supposed to have.
When they came asking with a subpoena, according to the indictment, he went through a series of acts directing people to hide the material, gave some material, didn't give other material, then went through an effort to hide it again.
Why is this important?
It goes to the habits of mind in office, which is a constant tension between doing things for yourself and doing things by the standards and norms of the office of the presidency.
So, this goes to mindset about how they would behave with four years in office.
That, I think, is the most important question.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Amna, let me ask about the prosecutor here, the investigation, Mr. Hur.
Was he out of bounds in describing in very colloquial terms how he viewed Biden's age and memory?
AMNA NAWAZ: The White House would say, yes, right?
The White House says it was gratuitous for that kind of information to be included.
You saw the president's response last night, which was just about as fiery and emotional as he gets, in particular when the special counsel questioned his memory over the death of his son, Beau.
But, you know, we just had this discussion on NewsHour as well, and I'll quote David Brooks here, who basically said the special counsel's job is to think about how a jury would look at this kind of thing.
And it was framed in that kind of presentation, which was a jury would see him in the following ways.
On the age question, I will say this, which is, yes, it's absolutely fair for journalists to be asking these questions.
He's the oldest sitting president in United States' history.
We are here to ask questions on behalf of the public that we serve.
And you saw Mr. Biden last night basically say, journalists are asking these questions.
That's why we're talking about it.
There's probably a real question there about whether people want to know, and so journalists are talking about it, or journalists are talking about it, and that's why people want to know, but the numbers show that there is not an insignificant number of people who are concerned.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.
James, obviously it's a legitimate issue, like any other issue.
But is this a redux of Hillary and her emails?
JAMES BENNET: I mean, the White House was certainly making the argument after the special prosecutor.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Do they have a point?
JAMES BENNET: Yes, I think the -- I've deferred to Josh on legal questions like this.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: We all do.
JAMES BENNET: But I found some of the language in the report a little bit gratuitous.
I mean, it seemed to me to go unnecessarily far and a little bit that they were trying to smuggle some of the details in.
If you look at specific details, like saying, was I still vice president in 2013, you could get confused about, technically, did my vice presidency end in 2012 or 2013?
You could read that a couple of different ways.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.
Josh, in the minute that we have left, and since you are obviously the lawyer here at the table -- JOSH GERSTEIN: I'm not a lawyer.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: You're a lawyer on T.V.
You're a lawyer on T.V.
So, tell us, was this out of bounds?
JOSH GERSTEIN: I would say there was a degree of sleight of hand here that James is kind of alluding to.
You know, this report at the top says this is a confidential report for the attorney general.
And in a literal sense, that was true, a technical sense, because it's supposed to confidential report.
The problem is the attorney general had already publicly declared that he was going to make this public.
So, when they were writing this and putting these phrases in there about, you know, a well-meaning elderly man who is very forgetful, you know, the prosecutors knew full well that this was going to be publicly related.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: That was almost written for the tweet.
JOSH GERSTEIN: It really seemed like something that was being thrown in there.
Might it appear in a memo under other circumstances in similar language, perhaps?
And, you know, it might have well come out anyway, even if it was not in the report.
