Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a 2026 candidate for California governor, criticized former Vice President Kamala Harris and former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra on Tuesday as complicit in covering up former President Joe Biden’s cognitive decline in office.
Villaraigosa said those actions, in part, lead to President Trump winning the November election. Becerra, who previously served as California Attorney General, is also in the running for governor and Harris is considering jumping into the race. All three are Democrats.
“At the highest levels of our government, those in power were intentionally complicit or told outright lies in a systematic cover up to keep Joe Biden’s mental decline from the public,” Villaraigosa said in a statement. “Now, we have come to learn this cover up includes two prominent California politicians who served as California Attorney General – one who is running for Governor and another who is thinking about running for Governor. Voters deserve to know the truth, what did Kamala Harris and Xavier Becerra know, when did they know it, and most importantly, why didn’t either of them speak out?”
President Joe Biden walks out to speak in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Nov. 26, 2024.
(Ben Curtis / Associated Press)
Attempts to reach representatives for Harris and Beccera were unsuccessful Tuesday afternoon.
Villaraigosa based his remarks on excerpts from “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,” written by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’ Alex Thompson and publicly released Tuesday.
The book, largely relying on anonymous sources, argues that Biden’s confidants and inner circle kept his deteriorating state from the American people, resulting in the Republican victory in the 2024 presidential election.
“Kamala Harris and Xavier Becerra took an oath of office and were entrusted to protect the American people, but instead Kamala Harris repeatedly said there was nothing wrong with Biden and Becerra turned a blind eye,” Villaraigosa said.