How the White House hid the truth about Biden’s decline from the world

Following Joe Biden’s disastrous performance against Donald Trump in their debate on June 27, White House reporters started poring through the visitors log at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. One name kept cropping up again and again: Dr Kevin Cannard.

The neurologist and specialist in movement disorders works at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, which serves the president. Eagled-eyed journalists spotted that he visited the White House no fewer than eight times between last July and this March.

The revelation forced a statement from the White House which suggested Dr Cannard had only seen Biden for his three annual physicals and the other visits were related to military personnel. Dr Kevin O’Connor, the White House doctor, added: “President Biden has not seen a neurologist outside of his annual physical.”

But even taken at face value, the statement prompts some additional questions. Firstly, why has the White House press corps taken this long to start investigating the medical comings-and-goings taking place under their noses? And, secondly, if the president really isn’t seeing specialist doctors, why not?

Many argue the 81-year-old president’s deteriorating mental acuity has been hiding in plain sight for almost the entirety of his time in office, while the White House has been able to blur the picture with a series of tactics that have shielded the president from the public gaze and offered excuses for his increasingly frequent missteps and gaffes.

But comparing the president’s performance in last month’s debate with equivalent appearances four years ago highlights the marked deterioration in his speech, his speed of thought and his physical appearance. The White House’s obfuscation, misdirection and bluster has given way to flat-out demands that Americans ignore the evidence of their own lying eyes.

“My jaw is agape at how [the White House has] let such a damaging political vacuum build up,” says one former Biden aide. “It’s embarrassing and they’ve definitely opened themselves up to charges they’ve taken in the American people by restricting access to the president. It feels like the White House has let the toothpaste out of the tube and it will be so hard to get it back in.”

Matters, almost unbelievably, took a turn for the worse on Thursday when Biden, welcoming Volodymyr Zelensky on stage at the NATO summit, introduced him as “President Putin”. Those in the room heard aides shout “Zelensky” to alert Biden that he’d made the ultimate gaffe.

The audible gasps in the room and the look on Zelensky’s face will surely have given even the most obstinate holdouts in Biden’s inner circle pause for thought on his future as the Democratic Party’s contender in November’s showdown with Trump, three years his junior. Hours later, he referred to Kamala Harris, his vice president, as “Vice President Trump”.

“I believe it will all be resolved within ten days,” says Richard Goodstein, a Democrat strategist and former adviser to both Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton. “I think Biden is absolutely fit to serve, but I think even he believes that may not be true for four [more] years.”

The former aide adds: “He is certainly giving every impression that he’s ailing through their actions and he seems to be shielded by his entourage and coached to utter even simple sentences, not least by his wife [Jill].

“[Biden] will always be thought of as a great man but his reputation is taking a hell of a hit. The legitimate questions and scrutiny he’s facing right now will only get worse so he needs to step aside soon.”

Anthony Scaramucci, the former White House director of communications under Trump, is even more blunt: “‘Mislead’ and ‘deceive’ are the right words when it comes to how the White House has presented Joe Biden in recent weeks,” he says, pouring scorn on the president’s performance in June’s televised head-to-head.

“The only way the debate could have been worse for Joe Biden is if he had collapsed and an ambulance had to be called. Since then the rest of the party has realised you can’t have a president who is demonstrating full-on cognitive decline.”

Gaffes and stumbles

Biden’s performance in the debate was all the more damaging because it fitted a pattern. Earlier this year, the president was spotted wearing wide-sole trainers following a series of embarrassing public falls. This included a tumble on stage at an Air Force Academy ceremony last year and falling up the steps to Air Force One.

The White House’s deputy press secretary batted away speculation the choice of footwear was intended to help the president from tripping, claiming Biden used the shoe to exercise (despite him often wearing the Hokas with business attire).

At the time of Biden’s first fall, the White House claimed the president had merely tripped on a sandbag but there have since been a number of adjustments to protocol. For example, instead of taking the iconic but sometimes-wobbly 18-foot staircase to Air Force’s One’s upper door, the president more often than not now takes the shorter and sturdier set of stairs that fold out from the belly of the aircraft.

The president has also taken to walking across the White House lawn to Marine One, his official helicopter, surrounded by his aides. This short amble across extraordinarily well-manicured grass is a standard and well-established photo opportunity. But, according to reports in Axios, Biden’s team have grown worried that footage of him walking alone would emphasise his shuffling gait.

Among those in the entourage are the small handful of advisors that quickly formed a tight-knit praetorian guard around the president even during the Covid-affected 2020 election campaign.

Unable to travel the country freely, Biden’s team spent a large chunk of the months in the lead up to polling day at his family home in Wilmington, Delaware. It is here that the president retreats to most weekends.

The cabal includes Anita Dunn, who is responsible for White House communications strategy; Ron Klain, a former chief of staff; Anthony Bernal, a senior adviser to the First Lady; and Annie Tomasini, a deputy chief of staff.

Washington insiders believe that because the Biden brain trust has always been so small and protective it is congenitally unable to utter hard truths. “It’s a reflection of the atmosphere by which the White House is being run,” says a former US defence official. “People are simply afraid to tell Biden, or more likely, [his senior aides] they’re wrong. One of the parlour games in Washington is [trying to figure out] who’s really in charge.”

But a leading Democrat said to be close to Biden’s inner circle of advisers told CNN there was now a “general sense” among staff “of holding your breath” with every public appearance the president makes.

Privately, even the president’s most trusted aides admit things are “going to get worse,” the Democrat added. And yet publicly, anyone who dares to question his fitness for office is shot down, they said. “Everyone who expresses any level of suspicion or contrary views? They call everyone and they beat the s--- out of them and say: ‘Stay on message.’”

Arm’s length

Nowhere is the stage management of the president’s interactions with the outside world more obvious than in his interactions with the press. Despite pledging to bring “transparency and truth back to government” soon after being elected, Biden has held fewer press conferences and given fewer interviews than any of his recent predecessors, according to data collected by Martha Joynt Kumar, a professor of political science at Towson University.

His first news conference as president in March 2021 lasted more than an hour and Biden’s performance noticeably fell off towards the end. His wife of 47 years, Jill, was said to have been angry with staffers for allowing it to run on for so long. Staffers have subsequently reduced the number of opportunities for journalists to fire questions at the president and have unscripted exchanges – sometimes deploying physical barriers to keep reporters away from Biden.

When he travelled last year to Ireland, home of his ancestors, Biden eschewed the tradition of holding a news conference while abroad. Most perplexingly, he has turned down the traditional Super Bowl pregame interview, which usually involves some pretty soft ball questions and a huge audience, for the last two years

Instead of talking to journalists, Biden has given interviews to actors like Jason Bateman and Drew Barrymore. The latter’s opening zinger was whether the president buys good presents for his wife. This prompted a lengthy exchange about the poems he has written for the First Lady. The White House has long claimed this is a deliberate strategy to circumvent traditional media and connect with audiences “where they are”.

But, strangely, spokespeople have simultaneously pushed back against suggestions Biden doesn’t interact with journalists or hold impromptu Q&A sessions. They claimed for example that the president answered 40 questions from journalists over five different occasions during his four day trip to Ireland.

A glance at the official transcripts show how cursory these interactions could be. One, which took place on the tarmac after landing back in the US, lasted just two minutes. Many of Biden’s answers consisted of just a couple of words. And clearly this format allows the president to pick and choose which questions he answers while negating the possibility of follow-up questions.

“Clearly, his staff has kept him from the usual back and forth with the press,” says Goodstein. “To be sure, he’s had some, but less and less over time. It seems a fair inference that his press contacts have been reduced to avoid gaffes.” Long-time Washington hacks talk of how, as a senator and then vice president, Biden was very happy to shoot the breeze, make himself available for off-the-record chats or to provide a quote.

One undernoted issue is that the psychodrama about Biden is preventing other senior Democrats from taking the fight to Trump. Partly that’s because they don’t want to be seen as undermining Biden and partly it’s because the White House won’t let them.

“I worry that the core cadre of counsellors around the president continues to try and put roadblocks and constraints in the path of some of our most effective spokespeople,” says Brett Bruen, a former diplomat who worked in the Obama White House. “Part of it seems to stem from a worry that the contrast with the president’s energy and effectiveness on the campaign trail would be put in stark relief.”

Diary management

It has been reported that those who manage the president’s diary try not to schedule early morning events or those in the evening that start after 8pm if at all possible. All presidents have downtime on their foreign trips but Biden appears to require more than most. He arrived in France 24 hours before the recent D-Day anniversary celebrations and spent his whole first day in a Paris hotel.

The president’s recent dismal debate performance has variously been blamed on a cold, over-preparation and jet lag, despite Biden having returned to the US nearly a full fortnight before his face-off with Trump. Since then, various anecdotes that foreign diplomats and the Washington cognoscenti have been sitting on are starting to bubble to the surface.

For example, Biden failed to turn up for an evening meeting with Olaf Scholz, the German Chancellor, in June 2022, according to a report this week in the Wall Street Journal. Antony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, reportedly told attendees the president had to go to bed. However, the White House has since denied he made those remarks.

The president often attends events holding cards with information. Two years ago he read from some scribbled notes on the back of a card he’d been handed by staffers. This allowed the TV cameras present to pick up what was printed on the front. It included instructions such as: “YOU enter the Roosevelt room and say hello to participants… YOU take YOUR seat.”

Recently he was pictured with a handwritten note that said: “Sir, there is something on your chin.” Staffers have also been seen whispering in the president’s ears when he appears lost for words. He has taken to using teleprompters even at quite informal events like fundraisers. “Using a teleprompter in the living room of a donor hosting a fundraiser is unusual,” says Goodstein.

At one such event at the Four Seasons in New York last June, Biden struggled to recall the word “veteran”, asking attendees to help out with the term for someone who had previously served in the armed forces. Event organisers reportedly cue music to start playing as soon as Biden stops speaking in order to forestall any questions.

A source close to a Middle Eastern leader who has attended meetings with the president in the White House says there is an even starker contrast with Biden in private now compared to a few years ago. In the past, he was renowned for his forensic command of detail. These days he’s able to deal in generalities but comes unstuck on specifics, according to the diplomatic source.

At a meeting with Congressional leaders to discuss funding for Ukraine in January, Biden was said to speak so quietly that many participants couldn’t hear him. He was also said to pause for uncomfortably long periods and frequently deferred to other politicians.

The White House has batted back this rising tide of circumstantial evidence by variously saying the anonymous briefings are motivated by partisan politics, using notes is common practice, the president is supposed to direct discussion rather than lead it, he has a speech impediment and/or he tends to be a little long-winded.

The president’s doctor has meanwhile said he suffers from “spinal arthritis” and “mild sensory peripheral neuropathy of the feet” which makes walking harder. Crucially, White House spokespeople say the president’s annual physical, which took place earlier this year, showed no need for further cognitive tests.

When the more right-wing networks repeatedly replayed footage of Biden “wandering off” during a skydiving exhibition at the G7 meeting in Apulia, Italy last month, the White House dismissed the coverage as dishonest and said other camera angles showed him giving a thumbs up to a paratrooper who had landed behind the group of leaders.

But one European diplomat who attended the event said the extent of his deterioration was plain for all to see and mirrored other recent encounters between the pair.

“At the G7, it was obvious that he was old. At one point, he wanted to sit and there was no chair,” the diplomat told CNN. “He was moving slowly. Stupid things, but they showed that he’s an old person who needs assistance. We all noticed it.”

Dead presidents

Part of the reason why the White House’s excuses for Biden are wearing thin is that a sceptical public is fully aware of the long history of various White House administrations keeping the ailments suffered by past presidents secret.

Woodrow Wilson suffered a paralysing stroke in 1919 and although his illness was announced its severity was downplayed. For the final two years of his term all communication with Wilson went through his wife Edith, prompting historians to dub her the unofficial first female president.

It was also well known that Franklin D Roosevelt was paralyzed from the waist down after contracting polio in 1921. But he carefully cloaked his disability in public using leg braces and gripping the lectern in order to stand for speeches. The press agreed not to photograph or film him in his wheelchair or being lifted out of cars.

When the president’s health deteriorated sharply following the Tehran Conference in November 1943, where he met Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin, his doctor told the press that Roosevelt was in “robust health” and his stamina was “far above average”.

In fact he was suffering from severe hypertension and congestive heart failure. He was advised to limit his work to only four hours a day (which was a little tricky with the Second World War still raging) and his smoking to just six cigarettes a day. He died of a cerebral haemorrhage in 1945, just a few days after being sworn in for his fourth term.

In his book Ill-Advised, the historian Robert Ferrell documents the litany of other medical cover-ups at the White House. These include Grover Cleveland’s secret operation for mouth cancer; Warren Harding’s chronic heart condition (like Roosevelt, he also died in office); and John F Kennedy’s Addison’s disease.

When Dwight Eisenhower suffered a heart attack in September 1955, his staff initially claimed he had suffered “a digestive upset during the night”. Ronald Reagan struggled with a series of medical problems caused by the injuries from his foiled assassination.

Reagan was also treated for colon cancer and had prostate surgery while in office, while his last months in power were dogged by rumours he was developing Alzheimer’s. There was also much speculation around the severity of Trump’s bout with Covid in 2020.

Following the Atlanta debate, the comedian Jon Stewart joked that Biden had “resting 25th Amendment face”. This is a reference to the part of the US Constitution that deals with presidential succession and disability.

The third section of the amendment, which has only been in place since 1967, provides for the president the power to transfer his duties to the vice president voluntarily when he is unable to perform them. The fourth section deals with the difficult issue of what should be done if an incapacitated president doesn’t invoke section three.

This can happen at the initiative of the vice president together with a majority of the president’s cabinet. But lawyers have long since pointed out that the clause is effectively “toothless” because all these politicians owe their positions to the president and are extremely unlikely to act against their chief executive.

As Eric Felten recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal: “The question of presidential incapacity has been entrusted to those least likely to make that judgement honestly.”

Go Joe

The White House has certainly circled the wagons in recent days and is getting ever-more aggressive in its defence of the chief. On Wednesday, George Clooney, one of the biggest names in Hollywood and the one of the most fecund fundraisers for the Democrats, wrote an opinion piece in The New York Times triggered by his interactions with Biden at an event last month in which he declared “I love Joe Biden” but urged the president to drop out of the running for November’s election.

“It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe ‘big f---ing deal’ Biden of 2010,” wrote Clooney in reference to Biden’s comment, caught on an open mic, about a healthcare reform bill signed into law that year.

“He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate. Our party leaders need to stop telling us that 51 million people didn’t see what we just saw,” Clooney added. “We’re all so terrified by the prospect of a second Trump term that we’ve opted to ignore every warning sign.”

But, to date, the party and Biden’s staff are continuing both the pretence and to lash out at critics. The White House briefed that the president had stayed at last month’s fundraising event in California for more than three hours while Clooney “took a photo quickly and left”.

This has since appeared to be a misstep, as it invited others who had attended the function to come forward with their own thoughts on the president’s seemingly diminishing capacities. Jon Favreau, a former speechwriter for Barack Obama and influential political commentator, told CNN: “I was there. Clooney was exactly right. And every single person I talked to at the fundraiser thought the same thing, except for the people working for Joe Biden.”

The dam is bursting. The only question is whether the Biden administration can hold the structure together long enough that it’s too late to change nominee, raising the chances of the whole Democratic Party getting swept away in November.

After him, the deluge.

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