Biden had ‘15-20’ episodes of cognitive decline in last year, Carl Bernstein says
President Biden has allegedly been observed experiencing mental decline on as many as 20 occasions over the past year — suggesting his disastrous debate performance last week was “not a one-off,” sources close to the president told legendary journalist Carl Bernstein.
The 81-year-old commander-in-chief’s close circle were not strangers to the “horror show that we witnessed” during his disastrous debate with former President Donald Trump, Bernstein told CNN’s Anderson Cooper Monday.
“These are people, several of them who are very close to President Biden, who loved him, have supported him, and among them are some people who would raise a lot of money for him,” said Bernstein, who is credited with breaking the Watergate scandal alongside Bob Woodward, leading to President Richard Nixon’s impeachment in the 1970s.
“They are adamant that what we saw the other night, the Joe Biden we saw, is not a one-off, that there have been 15, 20 occasions in the last year and a half when the president has appeared somewhat as he did in that horror show that we witnessed.”
Bernstein, 80, said what makes this “significant” is how “many people around the president are aware of such incidents, including some reporters incidentally who have witnessed some of them.”
“But here we see tonight, as these people say, ‘President Biden at his absolute best,’” the veteran journalist said, alluding to Biden’s White House address Monday criticizing the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling in Trump legal cases.
“And yet these people who have supported him, loved him, campaigned for him, see him often say that in the last six months particularly, there has been a marked incidence of cognitive decline and physical infirmity.”
Bernstein alleged that his sources said over the past year they had warned Ron Klain — Biden’s former White House chief of staff who helped the president prep for the debate at Camp David — that “we have a problem.”
“We have a problem such as we saw the other night. There have been numerous incidences where the president has lost his train of thought, can’t pick it up again,” Bernstein said.
What to know about the fallout from President Biden's debate performance:
- President Biden’s poor performance in the first 2024 presidential debate has left even some Democrats unsure of his fitness for office and future as the party’s candidate.
- Former President Obama admitted that Biden had a “bad” debate, while his rival former President Trump suggested that he was in a “trance” and “choked.”
- Biden told a crowd at a North Carolina rally the day after the debate that he doesn’t “debate as well as I used to” — but insisted that he can still “do this job.”
- The New York Times editorial board called on the president to serve the country by dropping out of the race. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution published a similar editorial a day later.
- Biden gathered with his family to assess the campaign’s future at Camp David, with his son Hunter reportedly pushing for him to stay in the race. Family members questioned if the president’s top advisors should be fired after the disastrous debate.
- Legendary journalist Carl Bernstein revealed that sources close to Biden have witnessed as many as 20 episodes of cognitive decline in the past year.
- Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) became the first House Democrat to call on Biden to drop out.
The former Washington Post reporter said there was apparently a fundraiser where Biden spoke at the podium before becoming “very” stiff, “almost like rigor mortis.”
- Watch Biden’s worst moments during the presidential debate
- Who could replace Joe Biden after disastrous presidential debate?
- Democrats panicked at Biden’s debate debacle — and aren’t fooling anyone as they now pretend everything’s fine
- Trump inches ahead of Biden nationally after prez’s disastrous debate: new poll
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“This was a year ago almost exactly at the old Four Seasons restaurant on Park Avenue. And he became very stiff and a chair had to be brought for him to do the latter part of the event,” Bernstein told Cooper.
“I think that what these folks are saying and have been saying for a while is, ‘Yes, he’s great when we see him, as we have tonight. But he also has these inexplicable moments that we’re very concerned about and you, Ron Klain, and the First Family, we need to talk about this.”
Bernstein claimed his sources have “been pushed back repeatedly whenever it’s been brought up.”
