By Annie Grayer, CNN

(CNN) — One of Joe Biden’s former top aides pushed back Friday on concerns about the former president’s health in a closed-door interview with the House Oversight Committee, a person familiar with the matter told CNN.

Andrew Bates, who had served as deputy assistant to the president and senior deputy press secretary, told the Republican-led panel that he believed Biden could have won reelection, but ultimately agreed with the former president’s decision to drop out of the race after assessing polling data and the political damage from Biden’s disastrous debate performance, the source said.

Bates’ testimony to the committee comes as the panel has interviewed a number of top aides from the Biden White House in recent months as part of its investigation into the former president’s cognitive decline and possible efforts to conceal it from the public.

Another source told CNN that Bates said after he had time to process the president’s decision and a turn in public polling during the final week of his candidacy, he agreed Biden had made the right decision to withdraw.

Bates stated that he interacted with Biden in person a little over once a month and engaged with more than 20 people to discuss Biden’s functioning in order to respond to press questions about the former president’s health, that source added.

In his opening statement obtained by CNN, Bates defended Biden, while criticizing Republicans for not investigating potential conflicts of interest in the Trump administration.

“In the White House, it was universally understood that Joe Biden was in charge. That is completely consistent with my personal experience with the president,” Bates said.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.