Who pointed out how cognitively challenged Biden was?
Commenter “Jamie” writes:
Before the [June 2024 debate between Trump and Biden], no Democrat in public life – and damn few Republicans – EVER expressed the thought that maybe Biden wasn’t in charge – at least, none that I ever heard of; every single one went along with what anyone with eyes and ears could tell was a lie.
I agree about Democrats, and I’ll add that they also spent a lot of time and effort saying Joe was just fine and sharp as a tack and that any suggestion to the contrary was a terrible insult and a baldfaced lie. So-called reporters in the MSM said much the same, another example of their left/liberal bias and willingness to lie. At this point, those coverups should be talked about far more than they are – including the fact that the MSM is still pretending to have been shocked and surprised by Biden’s performance during that June debate.
But those things are not why I’m writing this post. This post is the result of my curiosity about Jamie’s contention that few Republicans were pointing out the problem with Biden’s mental capacities, which after all is the source of the suspicion that he wasn’t the one really in charge. But then when I looked it up I saw that many Republicans had tried to make it an issue – and were told to go pound sand.
To take just one example, Trump was certainly doing it during the 2020 campaign, as was Republican House member Greg Murphy (the article is from June of 2021 but that was an update; it was written during the 2020 presidential campaign):
Greg Murphy, who represents much of Eastern North Carolina in the U.S. House, has said repeatedly in the last few weeks that Biden, the 77-year-old former vice president, has dementia. …
Murphy is a medical doctor — a urologist. But experts at the UNC Department of Neurology said diagnosing dementia requires a comprehensive evaluation, including in-person tests. Still, Murphy has posted versions of the claim at least four times on Twitter, saying Biden “obviously is fighting the ravages of dementia.” …
Murphy said Biden is not “physically up or mentally up for the job.” He cited Biden’s speech patterns and said “I don’t think one has to be a rocket scientist” to see it.
Nor did you have to be a doctor; it was, as Murphy said, obvious. And although yes, a workup is required for a full diagnosis, if the obvious signs are there any layperson can see it.
Back then when I wrote about Biden’s mental decline I usually used the term “cognitively challenged,” rather than something like “senile.” I felt even during the 2020 campaign that Joe was in significant mental decline, but in the early years of his presidency it seemed to me as though he nevertheless retained at least some sort of control over his decision-making process (although much later I think his Obama-friendly aides took over more and more). For example, I thought (and still think) that the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan had Biden’s fingerprints all over it. The problem there was probably too much control by a cognitively-compromised Biden rather than too little.
CNN’s Chris Cillizza was an egregious and yet typical example of the way the press handled the Biden mental status story as well as how it reacted to the statements of Republicans pointing out that there was a problem. See this Cillizza piece from August of 2021:
During the course of the 2020 campaign, Donald Trump repeatedly tried to make Joe Biden’s mental state a major issue.
“Biden is shot,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News Channel last fall. “I’m telling you he’s shot. There’s something going on.” …
Republicans continue to keep questions about Biden’s mental health front and center.
Earlier this week, Florida Sen. Rick Scott (R) suggested that Biden’s handling of the collapse of the Afghan government was grounds to consider removing him under the 25th Amendment. …
Then, on Thursday, Tennessee Sen. Bill Hagerty (R), in an interview with conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt, openly speculated about Biden’s mental capacity. …
This is the sort of gross, lowest-common-denominator politics that drive people away from public life. If Republicans have some sort of proof that Biden is declining, they should bring it forward. If they don’t, they should stop doing what they’re doing. Immediately.
This is a reporter? “Proof” wasn’t necessary; there was evidence on a near-daily basis. Were Cillizza and his colleagues willfully blind and in denial? Were they lying through their teeth? Was it some combination of both? Cillizza has helped us out at least a little bit by a recent (12/2024) and pathetically inadequate effort to explain:
“As a reporter, I have a confession to make,” Cillizza said in the video clip on Thursday.
“I should have pushed harder earlier for more information about Joe Biden’s mental and physical well-being and any signs of decline.”
According to Cillizza, Republicans would “regularly ping me” during his tenure at CNN to quiz him as to why he didn’t address obvious signs of the 82-year-old president’s deterioration.
Cillizza recalled how he would “brush them off” because he had not seen “evidence” that Biden was faltering — despite numerous verbal gaffes, physical stumbles and instances when the president appeared to lose his train of thought while speaking in public.
You should have pushed harder? No, you should have opened your eyes and unstopped your ears. But I can guarantee you would have done so had the subject under scrutiny been Donald Trump (or any Republican).
Cillizza did say one interesting thing:
The former CNN pundit, who read excerpts from the Journal report in his video, said he accepted the White House’s position that Biden was fine and that he was deterred from pursuing the matter due to the guilt he felt about “age-shaming” the president.
“The White House and the people around Joe Biden were absolutely adamant that suggesting anything — asking the question about whether he was in some physical, mental or both decline, was offensive,” Cillizza said on Thursday.
“‘How could you? It’s age-shaming.’ And I think that impacted me at some level,” he admitted.
Again, it wouldn’t have been a deterrent at all had the subject had an “R” next to his name. However, Biden’s aides also knew how to shame a friendly reporter by implying that delving into Biden’s decline would be insufficiently woke.
Cillizza said that “while I did ask the question from time to time … I didn’t really push on it, if I’m being honest.”
If you’re being honest …
Here’s another of the efforts by Republicans to call attention to the issue, from May of 2023:
Yesterday, Congressman Ronny Jackson (TX-13) led his colleagues in sending a letter to President Joe Biden and Physician to the President, calling on the President to take a cognitive test immediately, or renounce his bid for re-election in 2024. Jackson’s letter comes after the President’s recent announcement to seek re-election in 2024 despite the obvious showing of cognitive decline over the past two and a half years.
Jackson said: “The American people deserve to have absolute confidence in their President and trust that he or she can perform his or her duties. Meanwhile, Joe Biden’s mental health is sharply deteriorating while the whole world watches. This is not a political issue, even Democrats are losing faith in the man they put in the White House. Americans WANT a mentally fit leader and reassurance that the man they elected is a cognitively sound Commander in Chief. I administered a cognitive test to President Donald J. Trump, and it’s time that President Biden is held to the same standard. The American people deserve answers. If Biden can’t step up to the plate and take a cognitive test, then he shouldn’t run for President again.”
If Democrats had listened in May of 2023 and dumped Biden, they might even have won in 2024.
Jackson had sent similar letters calling for Biden to take a cognitive test back in June of 2021, February of 2022, and July of 2022. The one in May of 2023 was joined by the following:
GOP Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (NY-21), Chief Deputy Whip Guy Reschenthaler (PA-14), RSC Chairman Kevin Hern (OK-01), GOP Conference Vice Chairman Mike Johnson (LA-04), and Representatives Jason Smith (MO-08), Jim Banks (IN-03), John Carter (TX-31), Andy Harris (MD-01), Mark Green (TN-07), Greg Murphy (NC-03), Brian Babin (TX-36), Jeff Van Drew (NJ-02), Buddy Carter (GA-01), Diana Harshbarger (TN-01), Joe Wilson (SC-02), Byron Donalds (FL-19), Andy Biggs (AZ-05), Roger Williams (TX-25), Jeff Duncan (SC-03), Ralph Norman (SC-05), Randy Weber (TX-14), Pat Fallon (TX-04), Bill Posey (FL-08), Rick Allen (GA-12), Russell Fry (SC-07), Warren Davidson (OH-08), Claudia Tenney (NY-24), Troy Nehls (TX-22), Tracey Mann (KS-01), Beth Van Duyne (TX-24), Tim Walberg (MI-05), Aaron Bean (FL-04), Eli Crane (AZ-02), Nathaniel Moran (TX-01), David Rouzer (NC-07), Lauren Boebert (CO-03), Tony Gonzales (TX-23), William Timmons (SC-04), Alex Mooney (WV-02), August Pfluger (TX-11), Max Miller (OH-07), Jim Baird (IN-04), Keith Self (TX-03), Mark Alford (MO-04), Mary Miller (IL-15), Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA-14), Tim Burchett (TN-02), Victoria Spartz (IN-05), Dan Crenshaw (TX-02), Harriet Hageman (WY-At Large), Cory Mills (FL-07), Matt Rosendale (MT-02), Monica De La Cruz (TX-15), Tom Tiffany (WI-07), Scott Fitzgerald (WI-05), Andrew Clyde (GA-09), Michael Cloud (TX-27), Clay Higgins (LA-03), and Bob Good (VA-05).
From the left-wing Guardian in June of 2023:
These attacks kept up during Biden’s presidency and last year a group of 54 Republican lawmakers wrote an open letter to “express concern” with the president’s “current cognitive state” and demand that Biden take a mental fitness test. The letter cited the Alzheimer’s Association’s signs of mental decline before listing a series of Biden gaffes and polling on his mental state. (Biden has a well-documented stutter which creates frequent verbal gaffes and repetitions, making it fairly easy to find videos of him stumbling over his words.)
That letter signed by 54 Republicans would have been in 2022. The Guardian mounts the tired old stutter defense. Now, Biden has discussed having had a stutter in his youth, and I see no reason to doubt that. But I have yet to see a video display of a stutter from earlier in his career – nor do his verbal “gaffes” as president resemble a stutter.
While I was doing a search for evidence of a stutter from politician Joe Biden in his earlier days, I came cross the following video which I decided to post, not because it demonstrates a stuttering Joe (it doesn’t), but because it shows his earlier demeanor and personality which you are welcome to compare to his later years. It’s an especially sad contrast and doesn’t even really seem like the same person:
Moving along, in October of 2023 Speaker Johnson weighed in:
“Do you see in Joe Biden a cognitive decline, and if so, is that a danger to the country?” Fox News host Sean Hannity asked the newly installed House speaker.
“I do. I think most of us do,” Johnson said. “This is not a personal slight to him. It has to do with age and acumen, and everyone’s different. Everyone ages differently.”
Every single reporter, every single news outlet, and every single Democrat who denied Biden’s decline and mocked and/or discounted and/or insulted those who pointed out that decline, should be made to explain it. They have removed any last lingering doubt (not that I had any doubt even prior to this) about their extreme partisanship and willingness to cover up anything that reflects poorly on the left.
The simple answer in regard to the media is Glenn Reynolds’. They’re garbage people paid to lie for the Democratic Party.
Just out of curiosity, how many members of the NeverTrump residue pointed out Biden was gaga? Sykes, Charen, Will, French, Goldberg, Stephens, Frum, Hoover… any of them say a blessed thing?
I don’t speak for Jamie, or care that much about what Jamie said, but to give Jamie the benefit of the doubt, the Republicans listed here saying there was something wrong with Biden are not prominent Republican leaders, except maybe Johnson. Who was more than happy to cut deals on appropriations with Biden both before and after his statement in October 2023.
Of course this gets into a kind of pointless conversation about who counts as a “prominent Republican leader”. Do we let the New York Times define that for us? Are the ones who get a lot of media attention, like Marjorie Taylor Green, “prominent Republican leaders”? Do we mean Swamp Creatures like Mitch McConnell, elder statesmen like George W. Bush?
Doesn’t matter all that much. Damage was done. The legacy media who claimed to be acting without fear or favor, speaking truth to power and all that, has been exposed and is now ignored by most of the public, and that’s probably the most substantial outcome we can expect.
Biden was never in bad enough shape that he couldn’t have contested the 25th Amendment process, so unless GOP Congressmen and Senators refused to meet with him on the grounds that he wasn’t in charge–which as far as I know never happened–there wasn’t much else going to happen.
Now had the GOP House and Senate leadership refused to meet with Biden, had they challenged his signature on bills or something like that on the grounds that he wasn’t in charge, maybe we’d have seen something useful come out of it. That was never going to happen, the trough must be kept full.
After the election in 2020, Rep. Pramila Jayapal remarked that Biden “can be moved” when it came to the far left’s wish list. Most dismissed the comment as nothing more than spiking the football, but it turns out that maybe it was already not much of a secret that Biden was mentally compromised.
Ironic, isn’t it that 35 years after the fall of the USSR we had a leader who was our own version of Brezhnev or Andropov or Chernenko? Complete with a complicit media to cover it up. And just like the Soviets from about 1979 to 1984, we too had a Politburo that was collectively running things.
What is there to explain Neo? Dem/Prog politics has nothing to do with competence or mental health. It is now must win at all costs no matter what. And a mentally defective Biden means that party activists can use him to implement their agenda.
I don’t have the inclination to research about who said what, when. Nor do I want to get into the somewhat subjective qualifier of who rises to a “prominent Republican leader”. All I can say is that pretty much everyone I knew (pre-June 2024 debate) was at minimum skeptical of Biden’s cognitive abilities. Even many Democrats (when pressed a bit anyway) would usually grudgingly admit that there may be something to the notion that Biden might be mentally compromised. So, yeah… in my estimation it was one of those “open secrets” that everyone knew/believed but few addressed openly outside of the opposition party anyway.
All of this just highlights the absurdities that huge numbers of people will go through in order to avoid addressing an unpleasent truth. The emperor has no cloths, or Joe Biden’s brain has no cloths anyway.
Niketas:
Trump is a prominent Republican leader. Johnson of course is. Stefanik is, to a certain extent. Nor is this an exhaustive list; it’s just what I found in about 10 seconds of Googling.
McConnell is a Republican leader and he hated Trump, so I wouldn’t expect it of him – and in addition he had his own issues connected with aging and health, so he’d hardly be in a position to talk about Biden. What other leader was there?
@neo:Nor is this an exhaustive list; it’s just what I found in about 10 seconds of Googling.
If you personally use Google as the arbiter of who’s who in the GOP, that’s fine, I don’t have an obviously better methodology to suggest, but like I said, since there was no meaningful action taken by anyone in the GOP on Biden’s mental competence I’m not sure how much it really matters what GOP “leaders” said or didn’t say no matter how defined as “leaders”.
What I think really matters is that the legacy media rose as one to denounce and discredit anyone who said Biden was slipping, and they’re in “now it can be told” mode, and that’s a big reason why people largely tune them out now.
Niketas:
I don’t use Google or any other search engine as an authority. I use it to bring up links which I then read and evaluate for appropriateness.
And there actually was very little Republicans – “leaders” or not – could DO about Biden’s decline. The question was whether they called attention to it. They did.
Of course the larger issue was the press and Democrat cover up. I certainly tried to make that crystal clear.
@neo:And there actually was very little Republicans – “leaders” or not – could DO about Biden’s decline.
The GOP in Congress had levers they chose not to use. For example, nothing can pass through Congress if the House leadership doesn’t allow it to pass the House. I don’t think they minded Biden being in decline all that much, and I don’t think they cared much who was signing appropriations bills as long as they got signed, but reasonable people can disagree.
McCarthy had been meeting with Biden (and Jill Biden!) all through 2023, he never stopped taking those meetings on the grounds of Biden being too out of it to be in charge, or Jill Biden having no business being there at all. He talked about it afterward, not at the time.
In the end, (apparently) Obama and Pelosi got him to step away, using the levers they had. Obama has no official position at all and Pelosi did not control a House of Congress. Yet they did it. I wonder if we’ll ever learn the truth of how it was done.
I call 100% bullshit on the whole “Biden stutter” claim. Not only is there no evidence of a stutter from his past, but if, say, he had a stutter as a child that he overcame to become a US Senator at a very young age and one of the nation’s most prominent politicians for 50 years it’s a cinch he would have used it politically – “overcoming adversity” bla bla. The guy was in the public eye for fity years and nobody ever heard about his “stutter” until it was needed to cover up his senility. As for the Guardian’s claim of “well-documented” they’re leftists so they lie for the cause automatically.
From that video we can tell one thing hasn’t changed about Biden – he has always been oily and smarmy and creepy and phony. However if you watch the whole thing I must admit it can no longer be said that he has never had a good original idea in his entire political career:
“drug testing for the media”
It’s relatively simple…….Power and the pursuit of Power!
So asking about someone’s mental decline when it’s obvious is offensive but calling people fascists, racists, dregs, deplorable, irredeemable, garbage and bitter clingers isn’t.
Next question; who was actually running things? Names, please.
If our side hadn’t been trying to make this an issue, why did Joe Scarborough go on and give his delightfully embarrassing rant on “the best Biden ever?” Of course, actual officeholders will always be more cautious than the commentariat, who in turn are more cautious than we Deplorables in the comments’ section.
Next question; who was actually running things? Names, please.
==
Evidently it was some sort of pick-up team: Hunter, Jill, Ron Klain, Anita Dunn &c.
I stand corrected! I didn’t even do the 10-second Google; I was writing purely on the basis of what my unaugmented memory of the news over those years told me. More fool I.
But:
it turns out that maybe it was already not much of a secret that Biden was mentally compromised.
THAT is what my whole, unexcerpted comment was getting at – that and neo’s
Of course the larger issue was the press and Democrat cover up.
…which I think she did make crystal clear.
It was blatantly obvious to any adult paying attention during the 2020 Democrat party primary debates that something was terribly wrong with Biden. He struggled to answer softball questions time & again, it was obvious the other candidates could see him struggling. Even when he was out campaigning there were several instances caught on camera of Biden being pulled away from the press by his female staffers. The four years of his presidency were the greatest gaslighting operation since Woodrow Wilson had his stroke. Shame on everyone who enabled this sham, there should be a special place in hell for his wife.
In the last couple years I quit “fawning” over long time liberal friends and relatives stupid non-sequiturs and other various idiocies, such as those described here.
I hear a lot less from them and am better off for it.