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His superior in the Biden campaign quickly chided him. As the three rode in a minivan through the state’s cornfields, Anthony Bernal, then a deputy campaign manager and chief of staff to Jill Biden, pressed LaRosa to contact the reporter again and play down any comparison in campaign appearances between Joe Biden, then 77, and his wife, who is eight years his junior. Her energetic schedule only highlighted her husband’s more plodding pace, LaRosa recalls being told.

The message from Biden’s team was clear. “The more you talk her up, the more you make him look bad,” LaRosa said.

The small correction foreshadowed how Biden’s closest aides and advisers would manage the limitations of the oldest president in U.S. history during his four years in office.

To adapt the White House around the needs of a diminished leader, they told visitors to keep meetings focused. Interactions with senior Democratic lawmakers and some cabinet members—including powerful secretaries such as Defense’s Lloyd Austin and Treasury’s Janet Yellen—were infrequent or grew less frequent. Some legislative leaders had a hard time getting the president’s ear at key moments, including ahead of the U.S.’s disastrous pullout from Afghanistan.

Senior advisers were often put into roles that some administration officials and lawmakers thought Biden should occupy, with people such as National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, senior counselor Steve Ricchetti and National Economic Council head Lael Brainard and her predecessor frequently in the position of being go-betweens for the president.

Press aides who compiled packages of news clips for Biden were told by senior staff to exclude negative stories about the president. The president wasn’t talking to his own pollsters as surveys showed him trailing in the 2024 race.

Biden and Jill Biden at a North Carolina campaign event on June 28, the day after the presidential debate.
Biden and Jill Biden at a North Carolina campaign event on June 28, the day after the presidential debate. Photo: elizabeth frantz/Reuters
Presidents always have gatekeepers. But in Biden’s case, the walls around him were higher and the controls greater, according to Democratic lawmakers, donors and aides who worked for Biden and other administrations. There were limits over who Biden spoke with, limits on what they said to him and limits around the sources of information he consumed.

Throughout his presidency, a small group of aides stuck close to Biden to assist him, especially when traveling or speaking to the public. “They body him to such a high degree,” a person who witnessed it said, adding that the “hand holding” is unlike anything other recent presidents have had.

The White House operated this way even as the president and his aides pressed forward with his re-election bid—which unraveled spectacularly after his halting performance in a June debate with Donald Trump made his mental acuity an insurmountable issue. Vice President Kamala Harris replaced him on the Democratic ticket and was decisively defeated by Trump in a shortened campaign—leaving Democrats to debate whether their chances were undercut by Biden’s refusal to yield earlier.

This account of how the White House functioned with an aging leader at the top of its organizational chart is based on interviews with nearly 50 people, including those who participated in or had direct knowledge of the operations.

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The strategies to protect Biden largely worked—until June 27, when Biden stood on an Atlanta debate stage with Trump, searching for words and unable to complete his thoughts on live television. Much of the Democratic establishment had accepted the White House line that Biden was able to take the fight to Trump, even in the face of direct evidence to the contrary.

Biden, staffed with advisers since he became a senator at age 30, came to the White House with a small team of fiercely loyal, long-serving aides who knew him and Washington so well that they could be particularly effective proxies. They didn’t tolerate criticism of Biden’s performance or broader dissent within the Democratic Party, especially when it came to the president’s decision to run for a second term.

Yet a sign that the bruising presidential schedule needed to be adjusted for Biden’s advanced age had arisen early on—in just the first few months of his term. Administration officials noticed that the president became tired if meetings went long and would make mistakes.
They issued a directive to some powerful lawmakers and allies seeking one-on-one time: The exchanges should be short and focused, according to people who received the message directly from White House aides.

Ideally, the meetings would start later in the day, since Biden has never been at his best first thing in the morning, some of the people said. His staff made these adjustments to limit potential missteps by Biden, the people said. The president, known for long and rambling sessions, at times pushed in the opposite direction, wanting or just taking more time.

The White House denied that his schedule has been altered due to his age.

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In the fall of 2023, Biden faced a major test when Hur, the special counsel, wanted to interview him. The president wanted to do it, and his top aides felt that his willingness to sit down with investigators set up a favorable contrast with Trump, who stonewalled the probe into why classified documents appeared at Mar-a-Lago, according to people familiar with the sessions.

The prep sessions took about three hours a day for about a week ahead of the interview, according to a person familiar with the preparation. During these sessions, Biden’s energy levels were up and down. He couldn’t recall lines that his team had previously discussed with him, the person said.

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Originally posted by 2BobTanner:

The next 32 days are truly a scary time for the USA and the World.

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The past 4 YEARS have been a scary time. Only those late to the party seem surprised by all this.

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The White House tried to hide from the public Joe Biden's rapidly diminishing mental condition for his entire presidency, according to a bombshell report.

Biden's team hired a vocal coach, put other officials into roles usually occupied by the president, scrapped meetings on his 'bad days', and kept him at arm's length from his own Cabinet members.

An explosive investigation by The Wall Street Journal has exposed an extensive, deliberate and years-long cover-up that also saw the administration gaslighting those who dared to claim Biden's abilities had deteriorated since he was Barack Obama's vice president.

Despite the efforts of 'eager beaver hand-holders', Biden's decline became increasingly obvious, especially after Special Counsel Robert Hur last year released a report depicting a forgetful and frail then-81 year old.

Hur decided not to charge Biden for keeping classified documents in his Delaware garage because he 'would likely present himself to a jury' as a 'sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.'

Biden could not even repeat back to his staff lines they fed him while preparing for his interview with Hur, the Journal reported.

At the White House, Biden would also cancel important national security meetings, leaving aides to explaining to attendees that the president had 'bad days and good days'.

A well-connected Democratic strategist confirmed to DailyMail.com that influence over Biden had been 'concentrated by people who are not external facing,' including his close advisors Bruce Reed, Steve Ricchetti, and Mike Donilon.

Biden's lower-level staff have long griped that this secretive 'triumvirate' – also known as the 'Biden whisperers' – developed an outsized influence over America's oldest ever president. As his term comes to an end, many in Washington agree that it has been hard to tell who is actually in charge of running the country.

Egregious examples of the White House cover-up included one relayed by Democratic Congressman Adam Smith

In 2021, when Smith was chair of the House Armed Services Committee, he tried desperately to get in touch with Biden ahead of the bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan to share his serious concerns about the plan. His attempts were rebuffed.

When 13 U.S. service members and 170 Afghans were killed, Smith criticized Biden publicly and was reprimanded by Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Biden finally called Smith to apologize which, despite his key role in Congress, was reportedly the only personal call Smith received in the president's entire four-year term.

Close aides were also deeply worried about comparisons between Biden and his wife Jill Biden, who is eight years his junior and conducted a packed schedule that only highlighted the president's 'plodding' pace and frailty, the Journal reported.

Even before Biden's first day in the Oval Office in 2021, there were concerns that Jill's 'energy' was making her husband 'look bad'.

During his 2020 election campaign, Biden's team sought to play down how many events Jill was holding.

By late June this year, Biden's decline was on full display when he debated Donald Trump.

Gaffes, fumbles and blank stares from the president filled the hour-and-a-half televised event. It proved catastrophic for his campaign.

The face-off with Trump is what ultimately led the public, and even senior Democrats in Washington, to call for Biden to end his bid for reelection.

A month after the debate, Biden threw in the towel and endorsed his Vice President Kamala Harris, who Trump nonetheless defeated on November 5.

During Biden's presidency, aides would often have to repeat cues to him at events. He was given simplistic instruction cards with detailed pointers on where to walk, sit and look.

Biden's team even asked Hollywood studio mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg to find a voice coach to improve his wavering and fading voice. And when his voice did fail him, the team would help Biden by finding ways to avoid phone calls or public events.

Additionally, Biden was shielded by senior advisers who were put into roles that others felt the president should have occupied.

The officials who stood in included counselor to the president Steve Ricchetti, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, and National Economic Council head Lael Brainard.

A person who witnessed what happened with Biden in the last four years told the Journal that a small group of aides stuck close to him at all times and provided intense 'hand holding'.

'They body him to such a high degree,' the source claimed.

At the same time, press aides who were tasked with compiling news clips were instructed by senior staff to leave out any negative stories about the president.

The protective circle around Biden was heightened because he entered the White House at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and his staff took extensive steps to avoid him catching the virus.

But the strategy was also designed to prevent Biden from making gaffes or taking physical missteps, which would damage his image or create headaches for Democrats.

White House spokesperson Andrew Bates refuted the Wall Street Journal's account that Biden has declined.

Instead, Bates said that he has 'earned the most accomplished record of any modern commander in chief and rebuilt the middle class because of his attention to policy details that impact millions of lives.'

Biden has been an undisciplined public speaker throughout his more than 50-year political career.

He also had a childhood stutter that he often cites for the reason he would stumble over his words.

Despite the efforts of aides Biden is leaving office with members of his own party lambasting him for being 'selfish.'

Many believe that he was only looking out for himself by staying in the 2024 presidential race past the point of being unfit for another term.

Others are furious over his decision to pardon his son Hunter, 54, earlier this month after he was convicted of lying on a federal form to purchase a gun in 2018.

Polls showed Biden's approval rating hitting an all-time low as he prepared to leave office.

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Originally posted by ranger312:
Kamala claimed (on The View) that she was the "last person in the room" with Biden when important decisions were being made.

Isn't it strange that the WSJ interviewed 50 people for this article, yet not a single mention was made of the role Kamala played in the Biden administration.

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Originally posted by whanson_wi:
She meant to say she was the last person they would have let into the room.

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Originally posted by slosig:

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Originally posted by whanson_wi:
She meant to say she was the last person they would have let into the room.

Maybe not. Maybe they figured she was the only one stupid enough to not realize that there was something wrong with Joe.

I think pushing her was Joe’s revenge. In a rare moment of lucidity he thought, “They want to push me out? Fine, let them have someone dumber than me at my worst. Payback is a bitch. I may be senile, but I’m going to enjoy this show!”

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Originally posted by lastmanstanding:
Jillary was the one who put out the Tweet to endorse Kamala. Put it in the bank. Joe couldn't have come up with this on his own. I read somewhere the other day that she wants to burn it all down before it's over. She wants to expose everything and in particular destroy Pelosi. Jillary controls Joe but I don't know that anyone in the Democrat party has any control over Jillary. She is the poison pill.

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Part of my despair since 2019 was the knowledge that, whatever doubts I had about Biden, he already seemed on track to be the Democratic nominee since he had the overwhelming support of party leaders. The strongest argument for Biden was that he was the only one who could beat Trump. But that claim always disguised a hidden motive: The real reason Biden was preferred by Democratic Party kingmakers such as James Clyburn was that Biden was the only one who could defeat Bernie Sanders, whose insurgent candidacy threatened to push the party to the left and displace the existing elite. (Sanders, of course, was even older than Biden, but also far more intellectually present than the eventual winner. But by 2024 the Sanders threat had been neutralized, since it is too late for him to run again).

The full scale of Biden’s impairment is only now becoming apparent. There will be more reporting on this issue, but essential ground was broken by The Wall Street Journal on Thursday with a blockbuster report on “how Biden’s closest aides and advisers would manage the limitations of the oldest president in US history during his four years in office.”

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Originally posted by 2BobTanner:

The next 32 days are truly a scary time for the USA and the World.

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Originally posted by lkdr1989:
Hi Friends, just want to drop this here to start out the weekend:

[Cavuto leaving]

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Originally posted by sjtill:
One month from today.
Trump and his team loom YUGE in Washington.