So, here’s the good news for President Joe Biden as it regards his physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor: He’ll apparently be keeping up the charade.
Here’s the bad news for Biden and the rest of his administration as it tries to run out the clock until November and then January: Nobody believes O’Connor anymore.
In a discussion with a reporter from the New York Post just four days after Biden ended his campaign Sunday and amid swirling rumors regarding the president’s health, O’Connor continued to insist that everything was a-OK.
“Are you Dr. O’Connor?” the Post reporter asked as the presidential physician walked on the White House driveway.
“I don’t know. I don’t know,” he began.
Yes, yes he was Dr. O’Connor. With that out of the way, he “proceed[ed] to answer questions about the commander-in-chief, whose quest for a second term collapsed following his dismal June 27 debate performance against former President Donald Trump,” the Post reported Thursday.
You’ll notice they didn’t note he answered those questions with blunt honesty. In fact, he may have been most honest about eventually acknowledging who he was.
For instance, the Post reporter asked, “How’s the president’s health?”
O’Connor: “It’s excellent.”
Is Biden mentally fit?
The doctor was seen walking close to the briefing room. Was he going to “address” the media from the briefing room?
“Probably not,” O’Connor said.
This should have been “definitely not” — since, as the Post noted, the presidential physician “has never been allowed to brief the press during Biden’s more than three years in office — even though past presidential docs have taken questions during health crises.”
OK, then: “Could that change before the end of his term?”
O’Connor: “I hope not.”
He then realized that he was somewhat stuck, as the driveway crossing was cordoned off due to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arriving at the White House just prior to this. Thus, a few more questions.
The Post: “And how is his mental cognition?”
O’Connor, smiling: “It’s excellent.”
Well, now we know he’s lying:
@TrumpWarRoom made a montage of Biden’s aphasia during the debate pic.twitter.com/NZJfOC0rR8
— The Healthcare Channel (@THEHCC) June 29, 2024
The Post, again: “Is there a reason you didn’t perform a cognitive test on him?”
“We don’t need to. He’s here every day,” O’Connor said. (That could be read one of two ways: either buying into Biden’s nonsense about the presidency being the only cognitive test he needs, or the fact that he’s there every day, and he knows about the president’s appalling lack of cognition.)
The Post then asked about rumors — not just rumors, really, but actual doctors looking at his performances and saying he’s diagnosable merely by watching them — that he has some sort of Parkinson’s.
“No,” O’Connor replied. “No, he’s good.”
“And the [Parkinson’s] specialist’s visits to the White House, did that have anything to do with that concern?” the reporter said.
“No,” O’Connor responded. “He’s seen him three times, my letter was clear.”
That letter was the one O’Connor release after it was revealed that Dr. Kevin Cannard, a neurologist who is an expert in Parkinson’s, had visited the White House eight times in eight months. While the White House initially said the doctor didn’t see President Biden, O’Connor later released a letter saying that he had seen him as part of the president’s three annual physicals.
As for the rest of the visits: “Seeing patients at the White House is something that Dr. Cannard has been doing for a dozen years,” O’Connor added, “not because he is a movement disorder specialist, but because he is a highly trained and highly regarded neurologist.”
However, this came across as bogus to at least one doctor and self-identified Democrat: namely, Dr. Tom Pitts, the Parkinson’s expert who went viral after an appearance on NBC News in which he said Biden’s symptoms were so classic that “I could have diagnosed him from across the [National] Mall.”
“[Cannard’s] a movement disorder [specialist], that’s a sub-specialist in exactly what he has. And there are very few young people — like, a Marine Guard, most [military] people would be med boarded out for any type of movement disorder at a young age,” Pitts said.
To be “med boarded out” would mean they would be discharged from the military — and, given that Cannard was visiting from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, he was likely either seeing the president or enlisted individuals, not just some random person with a movement disorder.
All this is important because of reports swirling that the president’s health was far worse than the White House has reported, particularly when he was self-isolating in Delaware and essentially canceled all functions even after he was cleared from COVID-19 protocol.
Both House Speaker Mike Johnson and Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate, have called for Biden to step aside due to his health.
“If Joe Biden is not fit to run for president, he is not fit to serve as president. He must resign the office immediately. Nov. 5 cannot arrive soon enough,” Johnson said in a statement Sunday after the president announced he wouldn’t be seeking a second term.
In other words, nobody believes O’Connor, particularly when he comes across this way just doing a walk-and-talk with a reporter. Now we know why he’s never given — and likely will never give — a media briefing about Joe Biden’s health.
