WSJ: White House aides hid Biden’s apparent ‘mental decline’ from Day 1 of his presidency

Photo: WSJ

How the White House functioned with a diminished Biden in charge? Aides kept meetings short and controlled access, top advisers acted as go-betweens and public interactions became more scripted. The administration denied Biden has declined, writes ‘The Wall Street Journal’.

White House aides covered up President Biden’s apparent mental decline from Day 1 of his presidency, shielding the aging commander-in-chief from the public and even rearranging his schedule after scatterbrained performances, an explosive report revealed Thursday.

The lack of access to the nation’s oldest-ever president has been well known in Washington — with Biden hosting the fewest large press conferences in modern history and frequently descending into gaffes at the podium when he appeared — but how much the White House made up for the haziness had until now been hidden, according to aides, Democratic lawmakers and donors who spoke with the Wall Street Journal.

Presidential staff formed a tight shell around Biden, 82, right after he took office amid the COVID-19 pandemic, with staff immediately limiting his in-person interactions in January 2021.

But staffers also began making adjustments to daily plans when the president appeared tired or kept stumbling on the world stage — both figuratively and literally.

By spring 2021, meetings were being rescheduled to accommodate for his “good days and bad days.”

Meetings were often scheduled for later in the day — a fact first disclosed after Biden’s debate flop against President-elect Donald Trump, when staff admitted the then-Democratic nominee had difficulty functioning outside a six-hour window that closed around 4 p.m. daily.

Once inside the room with the president, officials were instructed to make their briefings short and to the point. Private discussions with even some of his top cabinet picks, including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, grew more infrequent.

One cabinet official eventually stopped reaching out to schedule talks with the commander in chief after having been repeatedly rebuffed, an ex-aide revealed.

Other staffers removed negative reports from Biden’s stack of news for the day, misleading him about the public’s opinion of his job performance — which reached a 70-year low in 2024.

Deputy press secretary Andrew Bates disputed the characterization of his boss.

“President Biden speaks with members of his cabinet daily, and with most members multiple times a week, staying close with them about implementation of key laws and strengthening our national security,” Bates said in a statement.

“President Biden leads a modern administration. Cabinet meetings are an important tradition, but the contemporary work environment means they can be fewer and far between.”

But the signs had been there throughout his term in the Oval Office: He frequently relied on notecards, was spotted having large directions printed for him, often mixed up the names of foreign dignitaries or other facts and gaffed when he went off-script or ignored his teleprompter.

…After reading this information, questions arise – who is giving the orders to strike the American ATACMS missiles on Russian territory? Biden or someone else? Who is leading the United States in the days remaining until Donald Trump's inauguration on January 20? What is even going on in the White House in Washington?

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