By S.A. McCarthy
The Washington Stand
American voters are increasingly concerned over President Joe Biden’s advanced age and seemingly deteriorating cognitive state, but the White House is insisting that scenes of the 81-year-old president wandering aimlessly, forgetting where he is, and speaking nonsense are “misinformation.”
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked Monday about videos showing Biden to be “especially frail or mentally confused.” Jean-Pierre claimed that reporters had referred to such videos as “cheap fakes,” adding, “They are ‘cheap fakes’ videos, they are done in bad faith.” She claimed that the videos in question are promoted by “right-wing critics of the president” who “have a credibility problem.” Jean-Pierre also claimed that other reporters had labeled such videos as “misinformation and disinformation.”
One of the videos Jean-Pierre referred to was from the G-7 summit last week in Normandy, France. In that video, Biden is seen ambling away from world leaders who gathered to commemorate D-Day. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni had to retrieve Biden and lead him back to the other heads of state. Another video showed Biden freeze up onstage at a Hollywood fundraiser Saturday night. He stood with clenched fists until former President Barack Obama took him by the hand and led him off the stage.
“Let me spoke [sic] to the most recent,” Jean-Pierre said to White House reporters, addressing the video from Saturday night. “This did not happen in the sense of what people were saying they were seeing or what was being falsely reported that they were seeing.” Without addressing Biden freezing onstage, Jean-Pierre simply explained, “President Obama [and] President Biden have a relationship. They are friends. They’re like family to each other. And I think that’s what you saw.”
Jean-Pierre also claimed that videos of Biden wandering aimlessly, freezing up, forgetting things, or speaking incoherently are “manipulated.” She called them “deepfakes,” which are heavily but convincingly altered, edited, or doctored images or videos which often show people saying or doing things that they never said or did. She said the videos are “false” and are “purposefully being altered,” before urging reporters to focus on covering Biden’s policies.
Last week, Biden campaign co-chair Mitch Landrieu also claimed that Biden’s cognition is not deteriorating. “And I wonder why anybody is questioning Joe Biden’s mental acuity,” Landrieu said in a CNN appearance. Referring to the upcoming presidential debate being hosted by CNN, he continued, “Donald Trump can’t string two sentences together. I mean, this is the biggest joke in the world. My president is going to show up on time, on task, and he is going to give it to Donald Trump next week. He shows up, he’s doing his job.”
In a survey conducted last week on the anticipated debate, 70% of American voters said they expect Biden “to mess up his words,” 49% expect Biden “to forget where he is,” 41% expect him “to walk off the wrong side of the stage,” and 40% expect him “to have problems standing up.” Additionally, when asked to describe Biden in one word, voters of all political affiliations responded “old.”
Polling has consistently shown Americans are worried about Biden’s age and cognitive abilities. An ABC News/Ipsos poll released in February found that a combined total of over 85% of American voters think Biden is “too old” to serve as president. A Quinnipiac poll published the same month found that nearly 70% of voters think Biden is “too old” to serve another term as president, 62% think Biden lacks the “physical fitness” to serve as president, and 64% think he lacks the “mental fitness.” A New York Times/Siena poll from March reported that almost three quarters of Americans — including over half of those who voted for Biden in 2020 — believe he is “too old” to serve a second term. Even 13% of voters who said they plan to back a second Biden term admitted that “the 81-year-old president’s age was such a problem that he was no longer capable of handling the job.”
Earlier this year, Biden’s own Justice Department was forced to admit that his mental and cognitive state was deteriorating. U.S. Special Counsel Robert Hur investigated Biden’s mishandling of classified documents during his time as both a senator and the vice president. Hur concluded that Biden had committed crimes in his mishandling of the documents but opted not to charge him, explaining that the president’s memory in particular was so weak that he could not be charged with a crime. In his report, Hur described Biden as an “elderly man with poor memory.”
Originally published at The Washington Stand!
