Daily Mail: White House staff carried out a plan to hide Biden's mental abilities
US President Joe Biden faced more calls on Friday from members of the Democratic Party to abandon his re-election bid after a press conference in which he stuttered in some responses while providing accurate answers at other times.
Biden's performance raised doubts that he would convince party politicians who are concerned about Biden's ability to win that he is their best bet to defeat Republican candidate Donald Trump in the November 5 election and remain in the White House for a second four-year term.
A state of anxiety
Democrats are concerned that Biden's low public approval ratings, along with growing concerns that he is too old to handle the job, could cause the party to lose seats in the House of Representatives and the Senate, losing their grip on power in Washington if Trump wins the presidency.
In the context, the British newspaper "Daily Mail" quoted an informed source as saying: "White House aides implemented a "calculated" plan that lasted for years to hide President Joe Biden's cognitive decline from the world," but they failed miserably when he had to defend himself during a debate last month.
Staff used many tactics to hide his shortcomings, such as limiting reporters' access to him, giving the president smaller stairs to Air Force One, and physically surrounding him in public places to hide his stiff gait, according to the newspaper.
Large printed notes
Biden also received large printed note cards with very basic instructions written on them for almost every event, and was committed to a stricter daily schedule so that he could get more sleep.
The source said that there are employees tasked with developing strategies to prevent the president from falling.
Bloomberg said that despite US President Biden's pledge that he will remain in the 2024 presidential race, two or two serious mistakes within two hours (during a press conference on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington) have deepened concerns about his mental acuity that threatens his campaign and may cost him dearly.
Before the press conference, Biden mistakenly introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as Russian President Vladimir Putin. At the opening of the press conference, he fumbled a question about Vice President Kamala Harris by saying that he "would not have chosen Vice President Trump to be his vice president" if he did not trust her.
Reactions to Biden's gaffes
The hashtag "Biden" has topped the "X" platform since his press conference at the end of the NATO summit, as the number of searchers and users of clips of the US president's gaffes reached more than two million and two hundred and fifty thousand. These gaffes also made headlines on most major news sites around the world.
Biden's slips of the tongue also provoked reactions from his closest ministers, as cameras highlighted US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, when Biden slipped by saying that his vice president was "Trump" instead of Kamala Harris, and some of them closed their eyes. For his part, the US president revealed that he had recently undergone extensive neurological examinations, and that he does not mind undergoing other examinations if his doctors ask him to do so.
