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The Wall Street Journal has an article delving into the efforts to cover up Biden’s mental state. But the article raises as many questions as it answers. I won’t dwell on the umpteenth revelations that Biden had bad days, that he had trouble remembering lines or figuring out where he was supposed to go.
While preparing last year for his interview with Robert K. Hur, the special counsel who investigated Biden’s handling of classified documents, the president couldn’t recall lines that his team discussed with him. At events, aides often repeated instructions to him, such as where to enter or exit a stage, that would be obvious to the average person…
If the president was having an off day, meetings could be scrapped altogether. On one such occasion, in the spring of 2021, a national security official explained to another aide why a meeting needed to be rescheduled. “He has good days and bad days, and today was a bad day so we’re going to address this tomorrow,” the former aide recalled the official saying…
Administration officials noticed that the president became tired if meetings went long and would make mistakes…
These aides, which include Annie Tomasini and Ashley Williams, were often with the president as he traveled and stayed within earshot or eye distance, the people said. They would often repeat basic instructions to him, such as where to enter or exit a stage.
This has been old news for a while and hardly anyone except a few insiders is even denying the obvious.
The real question is who was actually running the country?
We already knew that Biden had limited interaction with cabinet members. The article amplifies that.
Interactions between Biden and many of his cabinet members were relatively infrequent and often tightly scripted. At least one cabinet member stopped requesting calls with the president, because it was clear that such requests wouldn’t be welcome, a former senior cabinet aide said…
Multiple former senior cabinet aides described a top-down dynamic in which the White House would issue decisions and expect cabinet agencies to carry them out, rather than making cabinet secretaries active participants in the policymaking process. Some of them said it was hard for them to discern to what degree Biden was insulated because of his age versus his preference for a powerful inner circle.
And prominent members of Congress hardly interacted with Biden.
“The Biden White House was more insulated than most,” Smith said. “I spoke with Barack Obama on a number of occasions when he was president and I wasn’t even chairman of the committee.”
Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said his interactions with the White House in the past two years were primarily focused on the reauthorization of a vital section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that authorizes broad national security surveillance powers. Biden’s senior advisers and other top administration officials worked with Himes on the issue, and he praised the collaboration.
But Biden wasn’t part of the conversation. “I really had no personal contact with this president. I had more personal contact with Obama, which is sort of strange because I was a lot more junior,” said Himes, who took office in 2009
So who was running the show?
Cabinet members most often met alone or with a member of the president’s senior staff, including Brainard, the economic adviser, or National Security Adviser Sullivan. The senior adviser would then bring the issue to the president and report back, former administration officials said…
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…
Multiple former senior cabinet aides described a top-down dynamic in which the White House would issue decisions and expect cabinet agencies to carry them out, rather than making cabinet secretaries active participants in the policymaking process. Some of them said it was hard for them to discern to what degree Biden was insulated because of his age versus his preference for a powerful inner circle…
Instead of Biden directing follow up, Manchin noticed that Biden’s staff played a much bigger role driving his agenda than he had experienced in other administrations. Manchin referred to them as the “eager beavers”—a group that included then-White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain. “They were going, ‘I’ll take care of that,’ ” Manchin said.
Treasury Secretary Yellen had an arm’s length relationship with the president for much of the administration. She was part of the economics team that regularly briefed the president, but one-on-one discussions were more rare, and she typically dealt with the NEC or with the president’s advisers rather than Biden directly, according to people familiar with the interactions.
Most often, however, they dealt with the president’s advisers, not the president himself, some of them said.
“If I had an issue or I needed attention on something, I had multiple avenues to explore to raise the issue,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. “You don’t always have to raise the issue with the president.”
The president’s team of pollsters also had limited access to Biden, according to people familiar with the president’s polling. The key advisers have famously had the president’s ear in most past White Houses.
During the 2020 campaign, Biden had calls with John Anzalone, his pollster, during which the two had detailed conversations.
By the 2024 campaign, the pollsters weren’t talking to the president about their findings, and instead sent memos that went to top campaign staff.
Biden’s pollsters didn’t meet with him in person and saw little evidence that the president was personally getting the data that they were sending him, according to the people….
At some events, the Biden campaign printed the pre-approved questions on notecards and then gave donors the cards to read the questions. Even with all these steps, Biden made flubs, which confounded the donors who knew that Biden had the questions ahead of time.
Some donors said they noticed how staff stepped in to mask other signs of decline. Throughout his presidency—and especially later in the term—Biden was assisted by a small group of aides who were laser focused on him in a far different way than when he was vice president, or how former presidents Bill Clinton or Obama were staffed during their presidencies, people who have witnessed their interactions said.
The common theme in all this is Weekend at Bernie’s.
A small group of ‘close aides and advisers’ was running the show on the inside while cabinet members and lower level policymakers were able to do what they wanted. There’s a lot of conversation within the Dems about the influence of ‘groups’ like the ACLU on the functioning of the administration. All that was possible because there was place that the buck really stopped. There was no president.
Any review of the last 4 years has to grapple with the reality that America had no president.
Elected officials like the president, senators and congressmen have become ceremonial officials, like the King of England. A permanent unelected bureaucracy actually rules us. Politicians work for the bureaucracy, not the people. That explains why a government shutdown is hyped by the status quo media as a fate worse than death. Let’s see if President Trump can drive a stake through the heart of this bureaucratic vampire.
Biden’s brain function makes the Three Stooges look like a law school debate team by comparison. MSNBC’s automatic narrative would be that Biden was doing the work of three men. I wonder if it has occurred to Russia or China that those countries could have marched up Pennsylvania Avenue anytime in the past four years with 100 divisions to seize the United States and there would have been no one to stop them. Milley?????? He was too busy “dangle wangen” under his desk.
Look at the grouse! Look at the grouse!
Excellent coverage of the issue.
What to do when the President has Dementia? Absurd situation.
A fake “:President” With dementia and doddering old age?
What are the lies of us seeing this shit? I SEE IT!
They knew Biden was incapable off running the country as far back as 2020 and before that. He didn’t really campaign in 2020 and instead sat in his basement while the liberal MSM acted as his proxy and ran for president for him. All Biden did was leave his basement and show up when and where he was told to show up which wasn’t often. The situation begged the question of why was Joe being handled like a child?
I saw what was happening and came to that conclusion in September 2020 and said as much in a number of online conservative forums. All I got for voicing (writing) my observations were crickets and stone cold silence.
Unbelievably, there are people who to this day still think Biden actually ran for president in 2020. To put it nicely, that’s delusional and childishly naive.
With the way the leftstream media covered 2020, and the amount of vote fraud the Democraps pulled and were let get away with, Biden’s dog could have run and “won” that year, and it wasn’t even a particularly nice or well behaved dog.
Exactly.! To take it a step further, any democrat could’ve won in 2020. The democrat party, the deep state and the MSM (Fox included) had a real hard on for Trump and wanted him taken out by any means necessary. and that, they did.
Post 2020 election, Biden & Harris proved to be disappointingly incompetent and f**ked up so badly that no amount of cheating, vote rigging, lying about poll numbers, etc., this time around was going to stop Trump from winning.
They aimed at Trump, pulled the trigger and shot themselves in the ass. Nice shooting, geniuses! And we let those mooks run the country for almost four years and our country is till intact! That’s incredible and a miracle!
If it were up to me, I would cancel the next 4 weeks and declare Monday of next week January 20, 2025 and administer the oath of office to Trump 10 seconds into the new day!!
AND YET………..
if BIden was as ‘out-to-lunch’ as it would seem, how did he orchestrate such a swath of mass destruction?
from those few moments here and there of lucidity? or was/is it obama – soros pulling the strings pursuant to their globalist objectives?
the ‘hope & change’ huckster barack knew that biden was maliable and would continue his platform long after he’d left to go off and live with the other 1% from where he preaches his ‘populists’ claptrap.
“if BIden was as ‘out-to-lunch’ as it would seem, how did he orchestrate such a swath of mass destruction?”
“He” didn’t. Did you read it?
Justin Swingle:
Surely you jest: It’s an open secret that Obama’s minions have been running the country since January 2021. If you had notice, Biden himself let it slip on many occasions that he would “get into trouble” if he spoke on an issue he was “not suppose to” or gave an unscripted answer that was not on the pre-approved list of answers he could respond with to a question. Moreover, every time Biden went off script and tried to speak extemporaneously (he’s terrible at it) he immediately revealed the depths of his dementia.
By the way, Trump is extraordinary gifted with the ability to speak extemporaneously and more often than not does not need prepared notes or a teleprompter.. That’s only possible when you mean and believe what you’re saying and speaking from the heart.
Neither Biden or Harris could do that because they only read what was written for them to say and didn’t believe any of what they said for a second. It was just vacuous twaddle that they spewed to the masses of dumbasses who bothered to listen to their bullsh*t.
Not surprising but it’s a darned shame the administration, The Party, and the media lied to the American people, insulted anyone who noticed it or asked about it and EFFING ENDANGERED THE ENTIRE NATION BY ALLOWING THIS SITUATION TO CONTINUE. But it’s all okay ’cause the Democrats are “the good guys.”. Just ask anyone in DC, NYC, Chicago, LA, or Seattle. That’s what they’ll tell you.
“The Party, and the media lied to the American people…”
Really? Surely you’re not surprised by that? They’ve been doing that since as far back as I can remember and I’ve been on this earth for 68+ years.
As far as I can tell, there has never been an honest media anywhere on planet earth. Moreover, the notion of an honest media is a cruel joke.
To put it bluntly, there are some 8+ billion assholes on this planet and every one of them have an opinion. How can an “honest” media possibly exist under those circumstances?
Well, to be honest, I’m older than you and I remember, for instance, when President Eisenhower had a heart attack. The media didn’t say ” Oh, he’s just off bass fishing.”. Yes, our media are entirely corrupt, as are the Democrats. But lying and covering up in such a situation as this, and for four years, is way beyond the pale. In a rational world both The Party and the media would have completely blown their claim to have anything they say taken seriously.
Our disgusting, putrid MSM has been concealing this for four years!
If you think of it they concealed this, prior to this they viciously attacked Trump, and for 8 years before that pretended Obama was not destroying and hating America. I believe they were anti Bush. So, for how many years has our media been 100% corrupt and anti American?
Since we dropped the A-Bombs.
Really? From what I saw they did a piss poor job of it. Of course we were all suppose to going along and pretend not to notice. Uhhh… Yeah, right? The MSM honestly think that Americans are as dumb as a bag of hair, That may be true for many Americans but not all Americans.
And to be brutally honest, all of us know at least one person who is truly dumb as a dingbat and you’d be lying if you said you didn’t!
While this article asked the question “who has been running the country during the past 4 years”, it failed to answer that question. The contention that this staff member or that staff member would consult with the president and he would then render a decision is utter nonsense, given we know he is totally incapable of making decisions and resolving issues. So, once again, “who is running the country?”
SO, NOW that there is considerable consensus on the issue…..HOW about we arrest the leadership of the democrat party for committing treason against the AMerican voters.
Start with PElosi and Schumer…Harris and Dr. Jill….
.ALL KNEW THAT THIS MAN WAS NON COMPOS MENTIS….and yet LIED time and again about his mental abilities…..
Which begs the question WHO was making the decisions.
I.E…..If Joe is so mentally out of it..how could he pardon his son and the others…
.Doesn’t this admission make his decisions INVALID????
What about all the OTHER POTUS decisions…
Hmmn…Inquiring Free AMERiCAN MINDS WANT TO KNOW!
The whole idea was to get rid of Trump. So the Dems concocted Covid at the end of Trumps term and then cheated to get the desiccated husk into the WH.
Well guess what happens. The Dems do such a shitty job over 4 years that they end up with a “check-the-DEI-box moron running for president and it becomes a cakewalk for Trump to win in ’24. In spite of all the lawfare. Only one case left to get rid of now, if Merchan ever comes to his senses.
In the meantime Trump moves back into the WH and picks up where he left off, but with a better cabinet and an actual electoral mandate.
I guess the Dems really are that stupid.
Merchan will never come to his senses. He’s a full blown partisan hack. A court higher than his will have to do the right thing.
This is THE biggest scandal in American history and there must be a great reckoning for every single participant in it. They can not be allowed to get away with this. This is so big that there is still a possibility that the deep state will somehow prevent Trump from being sworn in so they stay out of prison. Martial Law declared?
You can wish that they all go to prison but realistically, nothing is going to happen to those people and you know it. That’s how the system works.
Think I’m wrong? Then go back to JFK and explain how he was assassinated right before the American peoples eyes and the alleged assassin was assassinated before our very eyes and his assassin conveniently died before he could be questioned.
All wrapped up, case closed, nothing to see here folks, move along. And we the people are suppose to believe that cockamamie story the government via the MSM told us? Uh-huh…, Yeah, right. I was born at night but I assure you, it wasn’t last might.
I guess we’re all agreed that Biden is not in charge and has not been since being inaugurated.
We need to make a list of all the actions that have been taken with presidential authority, and asked who authored them. The so=called Inflation Reduction Act? Was that Ron Klain’s idea, or Janet Yellen’s?
Slow-walking military aid to Israel? Tony Blinken or Nancy Pelosi?
1500 pardons and commutations? Maybe Dr. Jill?
This is truly scandalous. I’d like to get an answer, and I’d like to see them charged with falsely representing a president or something.
And then sent to Leavenworth.
Oh Dear God, how I wish we’d had no president the last four years or at least not the vile creature and his merry band of Marxists we got stuck with!
The country was run by Barack Hussein Obama. Every one Biden’s cataclysmically stupid and mendacious decisions had the stench of the great half-black Muslim, particularly his funding and coddling Iran, and the backstabbing of our ally, Israel. Biden is the second worst president in history. The worst president belongs to Barry Soetero.. in my view he is the most evil man ever to set foot in America. Biden is merely his demented puppet.
“He’s the best Joe Biden ever, and f-you if you can’t handle the truth”. Why does this joke of a reporter still have a job?
Paragraph appears twice in the article.
“Multiple former senior cabinet aides described a top-down dynamic in which the White House would issue decisions and expect cabinet agencies to carry them out, rather than making cabinet secretaries active participants in the policymaking process. Some of them said it was hard for them to discern to what degree Biden was insulated because of his age versus his preference for a powerful inner circle…”
This is the reason for the 25th amendment and no one had the ethics to do the right thing….
…. And if Kamala was a capable VP and wasn’t just a DEI hire she could have stepped up and made a difference…. She had plenty of time!