Wall Street Journal reports Democrats growing alarmed with Biden’s obvious cognitive decline during closed meetings as the 2024 election nears.
Democrat lawmakers are becoming more alarmed with Joe Biden’s cognitive decline “behind closed doors” as the 2024 election approaches, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
The WSJ reported Tuesday that, based on over 45 interviews with Democrats and Republicans, lawmakers have been raising eyebrows over Biden’s cognitive slippage during closed door meetings over the last several months.
Participants in private meetings with 81-year-old President Biden say he has shown signs of slipping. The White House says he’s sharp and his critics are playing partisan politics. https://t.co/niiogqMxst https://t.co/niiogqMxst
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) June 5, 2024
The 81-year-old Biden is the oldest person to hold the presidency. His age and cognitive fitness have become major issues in his campaign for a second term, both in the minds of voters and in attacks on him by Republicans. The White House and top aides said he remains a sharp and vigorous leader.
Some who have worked with him, however, including Democrats and some who have known him back to his time as vice president, described a president who appears slower now, someone who has both good moments and bad ones.
For much of his career, Biden enjoyed a reputation on Capitol Hill for being a master negotiator of legislative deals, known for his detailed knowledge of issues and insights into the other side’s motivations and needs—and for hitting his stride when the pressure was on. Over the past year, though, with Republicans in control of the House, that reputation has diminished.
The WSJ went on to describe how attendees of meetings with Biden have said he “showed his age in several of the exchanges.”
“Some who attended the meetings attributed off-key moments to his speech impediment and his tendency to be long-winded,” the outlet reported. “Those who expressed concern about Biden said the behavior they saw suggested an unevenness, not the caricature of an addled leader that some of his political opponents draw. The White House said the president’s doctors have found him fit to serve, and that his recent annual physical showed no need for a cognitive test.”
The White House pushed back against the WSJ’s report, insisting it’s simply based on House Republicans “making false claims.”
“Congressional Republicans, foreign leaders and nonpartisan national-security experts have made clear in their own words that President Biden is a savvy and effective leader who has a deep record of legislative accomplishment,” said White House spokesman Andrew Bates. “Now, in 2024, House Republicans are making false claims as a political tactic that flatly contradict previous statements made by themselves and their colleagues.”
Questions about Biden’s mental fitness sparked renewed urgency in February after Special Counsel Robert Hur reported that Biden’s memory was “significantly limited” during questioning about his retention of classified documents after serving as vice president.
Though Hur found Biden had “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen”, he declined to prosecute Biden because it “would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him – by then a former president well into his eighties – of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.”
“Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” Hur wrote.
Biden’s interview was apparently so addled with instances of his mental decline that Attorney General Merrick Garland has refused to release the audio of the exchange despite the transcript being publicly available.
Liberal outlet Axios also reported this week that Congressional Democrats — especially in swing states — have also begun to “Biden-proof” their campaigns, distancing themselves from their 81-year-old leader in the wake of his terrible poll numbers.
Biden may get a bump in support because of Trump’s felony conviction, but several Democratic lawmakers tell Axios the president’s middling poll numbers to date have made distinguishing themselves from him a priority.
There is “more distancing now as his numbers continue to tank,” said one House Democrat seeking re-election in a competitive district, adding that they are “pretty much washing my hands of his campaign.”
Another House Democrat said there is “always an element where you run your own race,” but “now it’s even more pronounced.”
Of course, to the average American voter, Biden’s cognitive and physical decline has been obvious for years now. But Democrats are appearing to realize he’s become a liability for their reelection chances just 5 months from Election Day.
