Several congressional lawmakers have reportedly raised the alarm about Democrat President Joe Biden’s mental decline.
Biden has been struggling with poor cognitive performance during private meetings with lawmakers, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal.
The news comes as concerns continue to grow about Biden’s age and mental acuity ahead of November’s critical presidential election.
81-year-old Biden is the oldest person to hold the presidency.
However, he has failed to convince the public and his critics that age is just a number, especially in Biden’s case.
He has faced skepticism from voters and Republican lawmakers about his ability to do his job.
Many Republicans and even some Democrats said the president showed his age in private meetings, according to the WSJ.
The outlet reportedly spoke with 45 lawmakers and administration officials about the president’s mental performance.
Most of the people interviewed by the outlet who were critical of Biden’s performance were Republicans.
However, some Democrats said the president is struggling with his mental acuity behind closed doors.
These interviewees participated in meetings with Biden or were briefed on them contemporaneously.
They include administration officials and other Democrats.
When meeting with congressional leaders in January to negotiate a deal to send additional funding to Ukraine, Biden spoke so softly at times that some people struggled to hear him, five people familiar with the meeting told the WSJ.
The president read from notes to make obvious points, and paused for extended periods, causing confusion among those present.
He even closed his eyes for so long that some people in the meeting wondered if he had tuned out.
In February, Biden met one-on-one with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA).
During the meeting, the president said a recent policy change by his administration that jeopardized some big energy projects was just a study, according to six people who were told at the time about what Johnson recalled from the meeting.
Johnson was concerned the president had forgotten about the details of his own policy.
Last year, when Biden was negotiating with House Republicans to lift the debt ceiling.
During negotiations, Biden’s demeanor and command of the details appeared to change from one day to the next, then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and two others familiar with the talks said.
He appeared sharp with loose and spontaneous exchanges with Republicans on one day and mumbled, slurred, and seemed to rely on notes on other days.
“I used to meet with him when he was vice president,” McCarthy said.
“I’d go to his house. He’s not the same person.”
Previously having a reputation in Washington for being a master negotiator of legislative deals, possessing detailed knowledge of issues and insights into the other side’s motivations and needs, and for excelling under pressure, Biden is now perceived as an aging president with poor cognitive ability.
Obedient White House officials, however, dismissed many of the accounts from people who have met with the president or been briefed on those meetings.
They insist that such criticisms were motivated by partisan politics.
“Congressional Republicans, foreign leaders, and nonpartisan national-security experts have made clear in their own words that President Biden is a savvy and effective leader who has a deep record of legislative accomplishment,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in a gaslighting statement.
“Now, in 2024, House Republicans are making false claims as a political tactic that flatly contradict previous statements made by themselves and their colleagues.”
In Biden’s meeting on Ukraine in January, the president laid out a compelling case for providing aid, according to administration officials and some participants, who said it is common practice to use notes in these meetings.
Bates also denied claims that Biden had misspoken during his meeting with Johnson in February about energy policy.
President Donald Trump, Biden’s biggest threat in the presidential election, at 77 years old, has not raised the same concerns over mental sharpness, despite the relatively small age gap.
Some who attended the meetings with Biden blamed his slip-ups on his speech impediment and tendency to be long-winded.
People who expressed concern about the president said the behavior they observed suggested unevenness, rather than a confused leader that some of his political opponents have described.
The White House said the president’s doctors have found him fit to serve, and claim that his recent annual physical showed no need for a cognitive test.
Members of the administration provided several examples of other instances they say showed the president was sharp and engaged, including long hours in the Situation Room in April during and after Iran’s missile attack on Israel, and late nights on the phone with lawmakers from the White House.
Despite efforts by the White House to gaslight the public, voters’ concerns about the mental acuity of Biden are shaped largely by his speeches and other public appearances.
During a campaign event in Detroit last month, Biden suggested he was vice president during the COVID-19 pandemic, which started during the Trump administration.
The following day, during a Rose Garden event celebrating Jewish American Heritage Month, Biden initially said one of the U.S. hostages held in Gaza was a guest at the White House event before correcting himself.
In January, Biden mixed up two of his Hispanic cabinet secretaries, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra.
At a February fundraiser in New York, he recalled speaking to German Chancellor Helmut Kohl at the 2021 Group of Seven meeting, despite the fact that Kohl died in 2017.
During a different fundraiser that month, he said that during the 2021 G-7 summit, he had spoken to former French President François Mitterrand, who died in 1996.
Concerns about the president’s mental state were amplified earlier this year when Special Counsel Robert K. Hur, who interviewed him for about five hours over two days last October during an investigation into his handling of classified documents, wrote that Biden’s memory had been “significantly limited.”
Biden addressed Hur’s report, saying “I know what the hell I’m doing.”
Americans have had limited opportunities to observe Biden in unscripted moments, as he has shown a reluctance to give media interviews.
By the end of April, he had given fewer interviews and press conferences than any of his recent predecessors, according to data collected by Martha Joynt Kumar, an emeritus professor at Towson University.
His last town-hall-style meeting with an independent news outlet was in October 2021.
Biden has had fewer small meetings with lawmakers as his term has continued, according to visitor logs.
During his first year in office, he held more than three dozen meetings of fewer than 20 lawmakers in the West Wing, even with pandemic restrictions.
The number dipped to roughly two dozen in his second year, and about a dozen in his third year.
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