OAN’s Brooke Mallory
11:28 AM – Thursday, February 29, 2024
After U.S. President Joe Biden said that his physicians “think [he] look[s] too young” after returning from his yearly physical, the White House’s top spokesperson maintained that Biden “doesn’t need a cognitive test” on Wednesday.
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“There is nothing different than last year,” the 81-year-old president said, brushing off public worries about his age while he seeks a second term.
“Everything’s great,” Biden added.
Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed at the daily White House briefing that the president is so mentally healthy that no cognitive test was required during the more than two-hour medical appointment, which was carried out by a team of twenty doctors.
“The president doesn’t need a cognitive test. That is not my assessment, that is the assessment of the president’s doctor, that is also the assessment of his neurologist,” Jean-Pierre said.
“He passes a cognitive test every day — every day — as he moves from one topic to another topic, understanding the granular level of these topics. You saw him talking about fighting crime today, tomorrow’s he’s going to the border,” she added.
This month, Biden claimed three separate times in public that he had recently spoken with long-retired or now-deceased leaders of France and Germany. After rejecting the possibility that he was experiencing cognitive loss, he made matters worse by mistaking the leaders of Egypt and Mexico during a combative news conference.
In a damning report published on February 8th, Special Counsel Robert Hur reopened concerns about Biden’s mental state after saying that the president should not be prosecuted for decades of illegally mishandling sensitive documents since “no jury would find him guilty” due to his apparent old age and poor memory.
Hur’s team “uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency” but that “Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
The public only learned of Biden’s medical on Wednesday morning when he yelled to reporters on the White House lawn, “I’m going to Walter Reed to get my physical.” Neither the presidential itinerary nor any prior announcements had been made.
In the afternoon, after Biden’s visit to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland, presidential physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor delivered a six-page report.
Biden “did note some increased left hip discomfort with recent activity” as a result of “mild arthritic changes” that are “contributing to his stiffened gait,” which the report states “remains stiff, but has not worsened since last year,” although it did not provide much new info.
“An extremely detailed neurologic exam was again reassuring in that there were no findings which would be consistent with any cerebellar or other central neurological disorder, such as stroke, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s or ascending lateral sclerosis, nor are there any signs of cervical myelopathy,” O’Connor stated.
Biden is the oldest-ever sitting president.
Presidential doctors generally address the press in times of medical crises, but on some notable occasions they have fielded questions in the White House briefing room after performing physical exams.
According to polls, respondents are more worried about Biden’s age than they are about Trump’s, who is 77. This month, according to an ABC News/Ipsos poll, 86% of US citizens said that Joe Biden was too old to serve another term.
In September, a Wall Street Journal poll revealed that 73% of registered voters thought Biden was too elderly, while 47% thought the same of Trump.
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