Posted on 12/21/24
| News Source: NY Post
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.
Biden’s meetings were rescheduled due to “bad days” in the early months of his presidency, the Wall Street Journal reported.AFP via Getty Images
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.”
According to the Journal, a national security official told an aide at the time: “He has good days and bad days, and today was a bad day so we’re going to address this tomorrow.”
But staffers also began making adjustments to daily plans when the president appeared tired or kept making mistakes on the world stage.
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.
The White House also hired a voice coach, Hollywood mogul and campaign co-chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg, to try to improve his faint, raspy tone.