Close associates of the Biden family expressed deep concern and surprise over President Joe Biden’s apparent cognitive decline as far back as 2023, according to a troubling report released on Thursday.
New York Magazine’s Olivia Nuzzi interviewed Democratic officials, activists, and donors who began harboring doubts in January about Biden’s ability to serve another four years, but hesitated to openly address their concerns.
Nuzzi wrote:
When they discussed what they knew, what they had seen, what they had heard, they literally whispered. They were scared and horrified. But they were also burdened. They needed to talk about it (though not on the record). They needed to know that they were not alone and not crazy. Things were bad, and they knew things were bad, and they knew others must also know things were bad, and yet they would need to pretend, outwardly, that things were fine. The president was fine. The election would be fine. They would be fine. To admit otherwise would mean jeopardizing the future of the country and, well, nobody wanted to be responsible personally or socially for that.
She reported that anonymous “longtime friends of the Biden family” were “shocked” to discover that Biden didn’t recall their names.
During a White House event in 2023, a guest was horrified to realize that Biden wouldn’t be able to stay for the reception because he wouldn’t be able to “make it through.”
“The guest wasn’t sure they could vote for Biden, since the guest was now open to an idea that they had previously dismissed as right-wing propaganda: The president may not really be the acting president after all,” Nuzzi wrote.
Nuzzi said that it was becoming more and more difficult to reach Biden, even for routine government matters.
“Others told me the president was becoming increasingly hard to get ahold of, even as it related to official government business, the type of things any U.S. president would communicate about on a regular basis with high-level officials across the world,” she wrote.
“Biden instead was cocooned within mounting layers of bureaucracy, spoken for more than he was speaking or spoken to,” she wrote.
Earlier this year, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin disclosed that he had been hospitalized for nearly a week following prostate cancer surgery.
The White House later acknowledged that President Biden was unaware of the cancer diagnosis or his defense secretary’s extended absence.
This occurred amidst increased tensions in the Middle East, with Iran-backed militia targeting U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria.
Following Biden’s challenging debate performance in June, there has been widespread speculation in Washington about the possibility of him being replaced as the Democratic presidential nominee.
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