Democrats Are Finally Admitting Biden Was in a Cognitive Slide During His Last Year as President

Leading Democrats are belatedly admitting President Biden was suffering from mental deterioration during his tenure, speaking out just days before a damning book is due to be released about the cover-up that would eventually lead to his withdrawal from the 2024 race. In the wake of last year’s election, many Democrats have placed blame with Mr. Biden for their party’s loss. For years, voters had told pollsters that the president was too old and too incompetent to serve a second term in the White House, though that didn’t stop fellow Democrats from coming to his defense over the course of the 2024 race. The most notable admission that Mr. Biden was likely suffering from mental decline came from Senator Murphy, who is widely seen as a potential 2028 presidential candidate. Mr. Murphy was a staunch defender of Mr. Biden even after his disastrous debate performance last June. On Wednesday, Mr. Murphy said it’s now obvious that Mr. Biden was suffering from some kind of deterioration while serving as commander-in-chief. “There’s no doubt about it,” Mr. Murphy told Politico when asked about Mr. Biden’s diminished capacities. “The debate is whether it was enough that it compromised his ability to act as chief executive.”“Obviously, in retrospect, we should have done something different,” he added. “The likelihood is the odds were pretty stacked against us no matter what, but clearly people were looking for change and neither Biden nor [Vice President] Harris were going to be able to offer a real message of change.”Another possible 2028 candidate, Pete Buttigieg, a former transportation secretary, was more cautious in his answer during a town hall event in Iowa on Tuesday. At the event, the former Cabinet member was asked by reporters about Mr. Biden’s decision to run for re-election last year despite voters’ view that he was too old to do the job. He seemed to sidestep the question regarding the president’s capacities, saying that he got everything he needed “from the West Wing,” and that Mr. Biden was the same man in front of the cameras as he was in private settings. “Right now with the benefit of hindsight, I think most people would agree that that’s the case,” Mr. Buttigieg said when asked if Mr. Biden’s decision to run again hurt the party and Ms. Harris’s chance at winning the election.“The time I worked closest with him in his last year was around the Baltimore bridge collapse. And what I can tell you is that, you know, the same president that the world saw addressing that was the president I was in the Oval with, insisting that we do a good job and do right by Baltimore,” Mr. Buttigieg claimed. “That’s characteristic of my experience with him.”Democrats’ subtle concessions that Mr. Biden had lost a step and hurt his party by running again is coming just days before a new book from journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson is set to disclose just how unfit the president was. The book, “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,” features damning information about Mr. Biden’s rapid decline. Excerpts and reviews of the book have already started trickling out, and the details seem to have Democrats concerned. At a fundraiser last year, the president was unable to recognize actor George Clooney, arguably one of the most famous men in the world. Mr. Biden’s aides went so far as to discuss the possibility of the president having to use a wheelchair during a second term, if he were to be re-elected. A rave review from the Washington Post describes “Original Sin” as a “damning” portrait of an “elderly, egotistical president shielded from reality by a slavish coterie of loyalists and family members.” Those aides and family members were “united by a shared, seemingly ironclad sense of denial and a determination to smear anyone who dared to question the president’s fitness for office as a threat to the republic covertly working on behalf of Trump,” the review states. One Democrat who is not willing to concede any diminishment on Mr. Biden’s part is Senator Schumer, who was a force — alongside Speaker Pelosi — in driving the president from the race last year. “We’re just looking forward,” the Senate minority leader said at a press conference on Tuesday when asked about the book detailing Mr. Biden’s incapacity. When asked during a live interview with CNN if Mr. Biden was capable of serving another term, Mr. Schumer on Tuesday again simply said, “We’re looking forward.”“That’s it,” he added.

Democrats Are Finally Admitting Biden Was in a Cognitive Slide During His Last Year as President

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