We’re only now learning that — shocker of shockers! — President Joe Biden is and has been cognitively problematic for some time now.
This is at least the media line, which seems to have just discovered that the leader of the free world isn’t quite all there. Axios, in particular, has been at the front of breaking the stunning revelation that things may not have been fine for quite a while now.
They’re the ones who broke the story that Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer was reportedly considering what ditching Biden from the ticket would look like before the debate (a legitimate scoop, it must be said) and also “broke” (air-quotes needed) the fact that insiders say the president is only “dependably engaged” between the hours of 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.
One is actually surprised it’s that long — but for world leaders planning to make him answer the hypothetical “3 a.m. phone call” Hillary Clinton memorably introduced into the political lexicon back in 2008, would you be so kind as to make it between the hours of 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Eastern? That’d be super.
Their latest “scoop” from Axios (air-quotes again require deployment) is that “miserable” White House staff and Democratic insiders are complaining that Biden’s inner circle are “prop[ping] him up” like the movie “Weekend at Bernie’s” and that he’s been insulated from having to behave like a normal human being by aides to the extent “that he’s lost all independence.”
In other news, denizens of social media reminded outlets like Axios — that just seem to have discovered the president’s cognitive infirmity wasn’t just an open question but a decided matter in the wake of a cringeworthy presidential debate that had Democrats calling for him to step aside as nominee — that, over two years before Axios published this story, photographs of a note card reminding Biden he had to enter a room and sit down during a meeting were accessible to all who wished to access them.
First, the story, one of many which have come forth like water bursting forth from a dam that burst on the night of June 27: “Many White House, Biden campaign and Democratic officials are increasingly worried that President Biden isn’t up to continuing his campaign or finishing a second term, despite his insistence that he won’t be pushed out,” Axios reported Friday.
In other news, creatures of the ursine family known to go to the bathroom in the woods.
“Everyone is miserable, and senior advisers are a total black hole,” an anonymous White House official told the outlet. “Even if you’re trying to focus on work, nothing is going to break through or get any acknowledgment” from higher-ups.
At this point should the nuclear codes be taken out of Biden’s hands?
A Democratic National Committee official was more blunt: The only thing that can really allay concerns is for the president to demonstrate that he’s capable of running this campaign,” he said.
“Everything else feels like ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ by his inner circle to prop him up.”
And yes, amazingly: “Some Biden aides believe those closest to the president have created a cocoon around him,” Axios reported. “They particularly focus on Deputy Chief of Staff Annie Tomasini, the first lady’s top adviser Anthony Bernal, and longtime aide Ashley Williams, who joined the deputy chief of staff’s office when Tomasini ascended to the role earlier this year.”
“Annie, Ashley and Anthony create a protective bubble around POTUS. He’s staffed so closely that he’s lost all independence,” a former White House aide told the outlet.
“POTUS relies on staff to nudge him with reminders of who he’s meeting, including former staffers and advisers who Biden should easily remember without a reminder from Annie.”
This was the “stunner” that pretty much everyone ran with on Friday, as Biden prepared to do a sit-down interview with George Stephanopoulos. (That didn’t go so hot, despite the friendly source — but that’s a whole different can of worms eating into the brain of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., so we shall move on.)
Here’s CNN’s Scott Jennings, for instance, calling out Axios’ “blaring [alarm emoji] sentence this morning” in a post on X:
.@Axios with a blaring 🚨 sentence this morning – Joe Biden has “lost all independence” according to a former WH staff member. Um, guys… pic.twitter.com/XcaHXnhknW
— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) July 5, 2024
Gosh, Scott, where else could you have intuited this information from? Fox News’ Guy Benson was one to remind him:
This was April 2022. They have all known for years. They’ve lied about it incessantly and aggressively, from the VP and First Lady on down. https://t.co/UgN0JwGuwI pic.twitter.com/mXLgA7w90t
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) July 5, 2024
This was Joe Biden being directed by the “Easter Bunny” — who was actually either Meghan Hays, then the director of message planning at the White House, or press assistant Angela Perez, both of whom were playing the role that day — after wandering off during the April 2022 White House Easter Egg Roll. Hays has since left the White House, and one would not be surprised if she was giving some of these damning anonymous quotes about the president’s independence to the media, including the one in this Axios story itself.
Miranda Devine, the Fox News pundit and New York Post writer who also authored the book “Laptop From Hell” about a certain errant first son’s errant MacBook and the data therein, also noted that this was on even fuller display in June of 2022, when one of Biden’s instruction note-cards was photographed by the media, which chose not to make it a big issue at the time:
Remember in June 2023 when Biden accidentally displayed one of the cheat sheets his babysitters give him for basic actions like when to sit and when to talk.
– “YOU enter the Roosevelt Room and say hello”.
– “YOU take YOUR seat.” https://t.co/kGji7ORe9z pic.twitter.com/n2G7BY1NXN— Miranda Devine (@mirandadevine) July 5, 2024
“YOU enter the Roosevelt Room and say hello to participants,” the first bullet point reads. “YOU take YOUR seat,” the second reads, as if he had to be reminded not to steal someone’s chair. This is the guy with his hand on the big red button, folks.
What’s more, the whole sequence of events is laid out for him over eight points which direct him as to when the media will enter, when he asks the president of the AFL-CIO a question, when he thanks participants, and when he departs.
It’s worth noting that Devine is giving Biden and the media too much credit; this photograph was in June of 2022, not 2023. Details, details.
But only now does Scott Jennings note Axios’ “blaring [alarm emoji] sentence this morning” about Biden losing all independence and say, “Um, guys…” as if this was something just revealed to him Friday morning as he sat down with his Red Bull and laptop.
Mr. Jennings, mind you, is one of the token Republicans at the network, having served in George W. Bush’s administration. He is, according to an archived bio at PR firm at which he used to be a partner, currently 46 years old. He is acting — and I do mean acting — as if this is some serious revelation.
The revelation is that Axios is now reporting this on a daily basis in the wake of the presidential debate going awry. Everything else has been known and has been lied about — “incessantly and aggressively,” as Benson put it — by interested parties from the White House to the media.
We’re just now questioning whether this is the man who should have the nuclear codes in his hand when he had to be instructed about the very act of sitting down two years ago? The scandal isn’t Biden’s lack of independence, the scandal is the fact that people should have known, and did know, about this, and yet refused to acknowledge it.
