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OAN Staff Brooke Mallory
1:06 PM – Wednesday, July 17, 2024
During a recent call with Democrat House legislators, President Joe Biden was purportedly handed a private note card that instructed him to “stay positive,” since he was “sounding defensive,” which he mistakenly read aloud.
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Typically, U.S. presidents in the past have been able to multitask while reading aide cue cards.
On Saturday, as the 81-year-old president tried his hardest to convince members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus that he was qualified to serve another four years and capable of defeating former President Donald Trump on Election Day, a staffer reportedly handed him a note card with discretionary advice, according to the New York Times.
“Stay positive, you are sounding defensive,” Biden said out loud during the important call, reading directly from his aide’s note.
The New York Times was informed by a congressman involved on the call that the exchange exemplified how “stage-managed” the president’s conversation was with lawmakers worried about his chances of winning reelection.
In press conferences, summits, private fundraisers, and meetings with foreign leaders, Biden has long been known to heavily rely on note cards that tell him who to greet, where to sit, stand, how to pronounce names, and what to do in general.
Even though other politicians occasionally utilize note cards to highlight certain topics or statistics and data during speeches, Biden seems to require much more assistance than others who have been in his presidential position.
Nevertheless, rather than the scenario of the president accidentally reading the staffer’s confidential note, the congressman also questioned if the incident could have been an example of Biden merely “poking fun at his aides.”
The president has a history of misinterpreting cues intended only for him to read, as evidenced by the April campaign speech in which he read “PAUSE” from a teleprompter.
Meanwhile, the CPC chair, Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), described the conversation with Biden as “productive and engaging.”
“We spoke frankly to the President about our concerns and asked tough questions about the path forward. We appreciate his willingness to thoughtfully answer and address our Members,” she wrote on X (Twitter).
The same day that Biden spoke with the CPC, sources at the meeting also claimed that he had a “tense” Zoom session prior with moderate Democrats that was “even worse than the debate,” losing even more credibility with those in the video chat.
“He was rambling. He’d start an answer then lose his train of thought, then would just say ‘whatever.’ He really couldn’t complete an answer.I lost a ton of respect for him,” one insider on the call said to Puck News.
“The president was rambling, dismissive of concerns, unable or unprepared to present a campaign strategy,” said another congressional member who spoke to the press on the condition of anonymity.
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