The Wall Street Journal is vindicated. They got raked
over the coals for their lengthy piece about members of Congress
noticing the mental decline of Joe Biden. That piece dropped in June,
weeks before the president suffered an election-killing blow during his
debate with Donald Trump. Whatever veneer of mental vibrancy that was
manufactured by the White House got obliterated, with the media also
being branded, and rightly so, to avoid reporting on such a story out of
fear of helping Trump or losing access. With everyone laser-focused on
Biden’s mental acuity, there was no way to spin some of the flubs that
legacy media often dismissed.
The Journal noted that he exhibited just enough sharpness to quell
concerns from allies and officials, keeping Biden somewhat alive behind
closed doors. That quickly dissipated as his presidency progressed. Even
foreign officials noticed the decline, with some becoming disturbed
that the leader of the free world was presenting with signs of age they
had seen in their parents. The Wall Street Journal charts the long and
winding road to the Biden White House’s demise. It’s chock full of
deflections, pivots, and spin from Biden’s communications team and
officials who, for some reason, are still defending this man’s mental
health. Still, this passage about Pelosi cleaning up Biden’s mess when
he was trying to pass the infrastructure bill is jarring and sets up for quite the political dirge:
President
Biden had just finished trying to persuade a group of congressional
Democrats to pass a $1 trillion infrastructure bill when Nancy Pelosi,
then the House speaker, took the microphone.
In 30 minutes of
remarks on Capitol Hill, Biden had spoken disjointedly and failed to
make a concrete ask of lawmakers, according to Democrats in the room.
After he left, a visibly frustrated Pelosi told the group she would
articulate what Biden had been trying to say, one lawmaker said.
“It
was the first time I remember people pretty jarred by what they had
seen,” recalled Rep. Dean Phillips (D., Minn.), who would go on to mount
an unsuccessful primary challenge against the president.
That was
October 2021. That month was the last time Biden met with the House
Democratic caucus on the Hill regarding legislation.
The man who prides himself on foreign policy wilted like a flower:
Many
Democratic lawmakers said they were stunned by Biden’s condition in the
debate in part because their contact with him has been so limited over
the past three years…
Senior officials at cabinet agencies have
privately complained for years that they didn’t have enough contact with
the president and his senior team, who centralized power in the White
House and directed much of the administration’s policy activity.
[…]
In
spring 2022, some European officials began to notice that something
might be amiss. Biden was chairing an online video call on Ukraine with
the G-7 leaders, a tightly scheduled discussion where Biden called on
one leader at a time to give a statement. Sitting in the Oval Office,
Biden at one point forgot to unmute his mic, then lost his train of
thought and began mumbling, according to an official on the call. He
appeared to lose the order of which leader should speak next, and then
tried to end the call without calling on Macron. Canadian Prime Minister
Justin Trudeau intervened to remind him, and Macron was given his turn.
[…]
Top
allies of the president, meanwhile, were encouraging the president to
“own” his age and turn it into an asset. Movie mogul and campaign
co-chair Jeffrey Katzenberg pointed to other icons born in the 1940s and
still working today, such as Harrison Ford.
In July 2023, the
White House’s management of Biden’s schedule drew the attention of
European officials during a five-day swing that included a NATO summit
in Lithuania and a Nordic summit in Finland. Some of Biden’s private
meetings and other elements of his schedule were removed or their length
was reduced, two European diplomats said, prompting NATO diplomats to
talk among themselves about how Biden’s exposure was closely managed by
his team. Biden’s team told Nordic officials and diplomats that this was
a tiring trans-Atlantic trip and the president was old, said one of the
European diplomats.
“Now, looking back, it was noticeable last year,” the diplomat said.
Sullivan,
the national security adviser, said on Sunday: “Give me a break,”
pointing to Biden’s announcement of bilateral security agreements for
Ukraine at the summit.
By the end of 2023, murmurs among
Democrats about Biden’s condition had begun to grow. Donors who had met
with Biden out West over the summer said the president appeared confused
and disoriented at times. At a fundraiser in the fall, Biden told the
same anecdote twice. At a White House Christmas party, a number of
lawmakers who attended came away concerned about what they saw as a
deterioration in Biden’s health.
[…]
In March, Biden
assuaged concerns about his age when he delivered to Congress a feisty,
hour-and-seven-minute State of the Union address, where he went off
script to parry Republican criticism of his agenda. Mingling on the
floor following his speech, Democrats congratulated Biden. “Nobody’s
going to talk about cognitive impairment now,” New York Rep. Jerrold
Nadler crowed.
Days later, European officials met with Biden at
the White House for a late afternoon discussion focused on NATO security
concerns and the Ukraine war. The president seemed reasonably sharp for
the first half of the meeting, according to a person present.
But
as the conversation wore on, the president began to flag noticeably,
speaking slowly and at times in a way that was difficult to hear.
Officials who had met him in previous years noted a sharp deterioration.
The officials left the meeting saddened, feeling the president reminded
some of their own parents as they aged, the person said.
The media tour that followed this disastrous debate, one set up to
rehabilitate Biden, was another train wreck, where ABC News’ George
Stephanopoulos, who first interviewed the president during this tour
that included BET and NBC News, was caught saying he didn’t think Biden
could serve another term. All three interviews were disasters, with the
BET one notable for Biden forgetting Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's
name, the first black man to run the Pentagon. The president referred to
him as “the black man.” Then, at fundraisers, like the one in East
Hampton, Biden took questions but brought up senior adviser Mike Donilon
to add the supplemental concerning donor questions, which attendees
found bizarre.
The article further charts how things became dire
on all campaign fronts when the dam finally broke following the
assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump and the
Republican National Convention. There was no money, and the pipelines
were running dry. Donors were through with Biden to the point where
down-ballot races were now at risk of being starved of funds. One thing that threw people through a loop within this circle was Biden’s re-election announcement, where it had been assumed that he was a “transition” president, serving one term as a bookmark for the next generation of leaders.
The Democrats’ unexpected showing in the 2022 midterms changed the
president’s tune. And a new plan was hatched, though one that involved
gambling on a man who was severely degraded physically and mentally. The
Los Angeles fundraiser he had with Obama reportedly shook the former
president to his core, seeing how his ex-vice president had aged.
With the money running out, no new donors, a Hill revolt, and the
base now vocally urging him to quit, Biden threw in the towel on July
21. But who is running the country?
Around the time Biden exited
the 2024 race, he was collapsing on all fronts. Virginia, which hadn’t
been a battleground state since 2004, was now within striking distance
of Trump. Biden never led Trump in any polls, trailing the former
president in all the crucial swing states. There is no pathway to 270
and no way to pay for it. The president quit, a historic action from a
man who never had what it took to be president.
.jpg)
