In a stunning and unusually candid interview, Michael LaRosa, who previously served as press secretary to former First Lady Jill Biden, delivered a blistering critique of the Biden White House—accusing the president and his inner circle of being “allergic to transparency,” even on the smallest of matters. His remarks aired Sunday during an appearance on Fox & Friends: Weekend, and come at a moment of intense scrutiny over President Joe Biden’s health, cognitive fitness, and political future.
“ALLERGIC TO TRANSPARENCY”: Jill Biden’s former press secretary slams the Biden administration for its lack of openness pic.twitter.com/SthIfnW9k1
— FOX & Friends (@foxandfriends) May 18, 2025
LaRosa didn’t mince words when asked about the recent release of audio from Special Counsel Robert Hur’s interview with President Biden—a recording that revealed moments of confusion and memory lapses, consistent with growing concerns about Biden’s cognitive decline. LaRosa described an administration culture that was deeply resistant to openness, even among its own staff.
“If you only knew how hard it was… This was a group in the White House who were allergic to transparency,” he said.
LaRosa recalled his early days in the East Wing, describing an atmosphere of stonewalling and information hoarding, even over mundane matters. “The very first day walking into the White House, the usher was fired,” he noted, highlighting a tone of tight control and fear of outside scrutiny from the very beginning.
LaRosa explained that even basic questions—about something as routine as dog bite incidents or family wedding logistics—were shrouded in secrecy. Staff members, he said, “got caught lying to the press about press coverage because they were so scared to be transparent about anything.”
“They took days and months to be deliberative, and I’m talking about the small things,” he added.
This obsessive micro-management over seemingly trivial matters led LaRosa to a sobering realization:
“If they were unwilling to be even the slightest bit transparent on the little things, my God, what would happen if there were big things?”
Those “big things” now loom large: just two days after LaRosa’s appearance, President Biden’s office disclosed he is suffering from aggressive stage four prostate cancer that has metastasized to his bones—a condition that experts say likely took years to develop. The revelation has only intensified accusations of concealment and raised questions about what the White House knew and when.
LaRosa’s testimony bolsters a pattern that critics have long alleged: the Biden administration operates behind a curtain of calculated silence and information control, where even allies and insiders are left in the dark. His account aligns with what other former aides and political observers have hinted—if not stated outright—for months: that the Biden team’s first instinct is not to inform, but to insulate.
Adding fuel to the fire is the timing of LaRosa’s comments, which came just before the release of the book “Original Sin” by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’s Alex Thompson—a deep dive into Biden’s physical and mental decline. That release, paired with the cancer diagnosis, has created a perfect storm of revelations about a presidency in decline and a White House in denial.
