Villaraigosa blasts Harris and Becerra for not speaking out about Biden’s decline
President Joe Biden walks out to speak in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Nov. 26, 2024.(Ben Curtis / Associated Press)
By Seema Mehta
Staff WriterFollow
May 20, 2025 Updated 4:43 PM PT
- Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who is running for governor, slashed at fellow Democrats for not speaking out about former President Biden’s cognitive decline while in office.
- The claims about Biden’s faltering facilities were published in a book on Tuesday and comes two days after the former president disclosed that he had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that had spread to his bones.
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?”

Villaraigosa blasts Harris and Becerra for not speaking out about Biden's decline
Former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa criticized Kamala Harris and Xavier Becerra as complicit in covering up former President Biden’s cognitive decline in office.
