Carl Bernstein says Biden is "sharp" at meetings but his alarming debate performance "not a one-off"

Journalist Carl Berstein, the former Washington Post reporter who helped reveal the Watergate scandal, said on CNN Monday that sources “very close” to President Joe Biden told him that the Democrat’s debate performance last week is not surprising, claiming that he has appeared similarly low energy more than a dozen times since 2022, The Daily Beast reported.

Bernstein, now a CNN analyst, shared that these concerns with Biden’s age and fitness have shaken the faith of many Biden supporters.

“These are people, several of them who are very close to President Biden, who love him … and they are adamant that what we saw the other night, the Joe Biden we saw, is not a one-off,” Bernstein told CNN. “There have been 15, 20 occasions in the last year and a half when the president has appeared somewhat as he did in that horror show.”

While Berstein didn’t name the concerned parties, he emphasized the importance of their opinions. “What‘s so significant is the people that this is coming from, and also how many people around the president are aware of such incidents, including some reporters, incidentally, who have witnessed some of them,” he said.

Bernstein described a fundraiser just about a year ago, where the president was allegedly standing at podium when he appeared to become “stiff," almost like “as if it were a kind of rigor mortis.” Biden had to be brought a chair, Bernstein said, and he remained seated through the rest of the event.

On the other hand, Berstein added: “I have heard for two years how sharp Joe Biden is during his national security meetings. He has special briefing books on Ukraine, and the situation in Gaza, that go down to very detailed military reports. He has an absolute command of the facts, he’s as sharp as can be.”

The way Berstein explains it, while Biden, 81, has great moments, he also has “inexplicable” ones worth investigating because “we are clearly dealing with two sets of one person,” he told CNN.

Biden’s performance against presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump has made many Democrats reconsider whether the incumbent should remain on the party's ticket. Meanwhile, Biden and his team, who claimed he had a cold the day of the debate, have been working double time to reassure voters that he can still get the job done.

“Folks, I would not be running again if I did not believe with all of my heart and soul that I can do this job,” Biden told supporters in New York last week after the debate, HuffPost reported.