Villaraigosa blasts Harris and Becerra for not speaking out about Biden’s decline

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 Biden’s cognitive decline while in office.

Villaraigosa said those actions, in part, led to President Trump winning the November election. Becerra, who previously served as California’s 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?”

Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, from left, former Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra and former Vice President Kamala Harris.

(Godofredo A. Vásquez, Nathan Ellgren, Susan Walsh / Associated Press)

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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.

The book portrays Biden as in decline for as long as a decade, and argues that a circle of political advisors and his family hid his condition from voters.

“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.

“Original Sin” was published shortly after the former president disclosed on Sunday that he had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that had spread to his bones.

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The race to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom has been going on for months, or for some candidates, more than a year. They have largely been focused on fundraising, given that the primary election is more than a year away. More than a half-dozen prominent Democrats are running, and many of their policy positions are similar. So an issue such as this — the first major attack in the race — could help voters differentiate the candidates.

Dan Schnur, a politics professor at USC, UC Berkeley and Pepperdine, said the issue is more dangerous for Harris than for Becerra.

“No normal voter knows what a secretary of Health and Human Services is,” Schnur said. “But they all understand the role of the vice president. So this is a minor issue at best for Becerra but a much bigger challenge for Harris. She’s already stuck with defending everything voters didn’t like about the Biden administration, but this is much more difficult.”

He said this vulnerability applies whether she runs for governor next year or president in 2028.

“Theoretically, Joe Biden’s vice president should be more familiar with Joe Biden’s health than anyone on the planet aside from his doctor and his wife,” Schnur said. “Even Cabinet members have some small amount of deniability. But for Harris, she’s going to have to explain either why she didn’t know about the extent of the president’s health challenges or why she was part of the cover-up. There’s no good option there.”

Attempts to reach a representative for Harris were unsuccessful Tuesday.

The former vice president defended Biden in the aftermath of a disastrous debate performance against Trump last summer, describing him as “extraordinarily strong.” His performance in the debate led to Democrats publicly questioning whether he should seek reelection, and, ultimately, his decision to bow out of the race and Harris becoming the 2024 Democratic nominee.

In her first major interview after becoming the party’s standard-bearer, Harris was asked whether she regretted defending Biden after the debate.

“No, not at all. Not at all,” she told CNN’s Dana Bash in August. “He is so smart and loyal to the American people.”

In October, Fox News’ Bret Baier pressed Harris on when she first noticed that Biden was slipping mentally.

“Joe Biden, I have watched from the Oval Office to the Situation Room, and he has the judgment and the experience to do exactly what he has done in making very important decisions on behalf of the American people,” Harris responded.

But when asked whether any concerns had been raised, Harris pivoted to Trump.

“Bret, Joe Biden is not on the ballot … and Donald Trump is,” Harris said.

One example of Biden’s cognitive decline cited by the “Original Sin” authors was that he confused Becerra with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, according to the New York Times.

Asked to respond to Villaraigosa’s attack, Becerra did not address the incident but expressed well wishes for the former president and his family as Biden begins cancer treatment. He also defended his dealings with the former president when he was the nation’s health chief.

“I met with President Biden when needed to make important decisions and to execute with my team at HHS,” Becerra said in a statement. “It’s clear the president was getting older, but he made the mission clear: Run the largest health agency in the world, expand care to millions more Americans than ever before, negotiate down the cost of prescription drugs, and pull us out of a worldwide pandemic. And we delivered.”