It was a simple yes-or-no question. But in the White House, in the aftermath of the disaster debate of June 27, nothing has been particularly simple.
“Just wanted to clarify one thing,” CNN’s M.J. Lee asked White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre at Wednesday’s media briefing, per a transcript. “Has the president had any medical exams since his last annual physical in February?”
This, of course, is one of the excuses given by the president’s people for his poor performance at the June 27 implosion. At first, nobody seemed to know, even though CBS journalist Nancy Cordes said she had been texting all around asking why the president sounded weak, hoarse and inaudible. “About halfway through the debate,” she said, his team switched to his having a cold as the official explanation.
CBS: “What’s wrong with [Biden]?”
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) June 28, 2024
So, had he seen his doctors since then? Before the debate? After, to check his condition?
“We were able to talk to the — to his doctor about that, and that is a no,” Karine Jean-Pierre said.
Then, on Wednesday evening, Politico reported that … Biden told the governors in a meeting that very evening that he’d gotten a check-up in recent days. Lee noted on social media that this was — to paraphrase the words of Richard M. Nixon on Aug. 5, 1974, the day the existence of the “smoking gun tape” became known — at variance with certain of KJP’s previous statements.
Statements she made just a few hours ago. At least Nixon had a decorous period of a few months before he was confirmed to be a liar:
White House spox Andrew Bates confirms Biden was examined by his doctor in the days following last week’s debate “to check on his cold and was recovering well.”
I asked WH press secretary yesterday if Biden had gotten any medical exam after his February physical and she said no: https://t.co/qhNHlElUTf pic.twitter.com/GOUUiXhIoR
— MJ Lee (@mj_lee) July 4, 2024
“During an hour-long meeting prompted by intensifying concerns about his health and political viability, one governor asked Biden about his physical condition,” Politico reported.
“The president mentioned having had a check-up in recent days and asserted that he remains in good health, knocking on wood for effect, according to two of those people, who were granted anonymity to describe a private meeting.”
This was confirmed, as Lee noted, by White House spokesman Andrew Bates.
“Several days later, the president was seen to check on his cold and was recovering well,” he said, according to NBC News.
During a press gaggle with the media on the way to Wisconsin on Friday afternoon, aboard Air Force One, KJP struggled to explain exactly why Bates and the president seemed to be at variance with her previous statements on his health and doctor check-ups.
“So he did have a short verbal check-in in the recent days about his cold,” she told an unidentified reporter in an audio-only recording of the gaggle posted online by RNC Research.
“It wasn’t a medical exam or a physical, just want to be super, super clear about that. It was a conversation. And his doctor didn’t think an examination was necessary.
Do you trust Karine Jean-Pierre?
“I do want to take a little bit of a step back,” Jean-Pierre continued. “The way the president has doctors — doctors, a medical unit around him 24/7, and that’s not because of this president, that’s with all presidents.
“And the way he certainly experiences his engagement with his doctors is very, very, very different than Americans across the country, right?” she said.
“Americans, they have to get in the car, get public transportation somewhere, they’re lucky if they get to see their doctor more than twice a year, and so I just want to be very clear about that.”
She said she wouldn’t describe it as a “check-up,” but a “check-in, it was like a verbal check-in about the call, which is again — not the call, about his uh, uh, with the doctor, which is not unusual. It is not unusual.”
Karine Jean-Pierre has a VERY tough time explaining why she told the press Biden hadn’t been seen by a doctor after his humiliating debate performance — but Biden told governors that he had, in fact, been seen by a doctor pic.twitter.com/1cronjh0lj
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 5, 2024
So, is whatever he has transmissible? Because KJP certainly seems to have caught it.
This, again, is not really what 1) Jean-Pierre said to the media on Wednesday, 2) Biden is reported to have said to governors later on Wednesday by Politico, or 3) what Andrew Bates told NBC News on Thursday.
That’s four variances in something in less than two days, from the media briefing at 1:50 p.m. ET to sometime just before RNC Research posted this press gaggle on social media at 1:34 p.m. Friday, all for what should have been a yes-or-no question.
Nixon lasted three days after his “variances” came to light. What’s your over-under on Biden as nominee, especially after that disastrous George Stephanopoulos interview Friday? I suppose maybe he has a holiday weekend in his favor for outlasting Tricky Dick in this department, but not by much.
