In an explosive exposé, the Wall Street Journal has revealed how the mental decline of President Joe Biden was pronounced from the start of his term. However, cabinet members and other Democrats lied to the public about his declining levels of acuity and engagement. That effort succeeded largely with the help of an alliance with the media, which showed little interest in whether the President was actually running the government.
After President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance, the solid wall of media and staff shielding his declining mental state collapsed. Even after Special Counsel Robert Hur declined criminal charges against Biden due to his diminished state, Democratic pundits and the press covered for him, claiming that he was sharp and effective. With the debate, the public was able to see what many in the media and the White House had been hiding for years.
After interviewing roughly 50 insiders, the Journal found evidence of a knowing effort to hide Biden’s mental state. For many, Biden’s refusal to leave his home for much of the 2020 campaign was evidence of the insecurity of staff about his ability to engage with reporters. It only got worse during the term as staff virtually tackled anyone trying to ask him a question. Biden was routinely shuffled off stage after reading briefly from a teleprompter.
Behind the scenes, cabinet members reportedly stopped asking for meetings with Biden after staff conveyed that such requests were not welcomed. He held far fewer cabinet meetings and was often considered “down” for any discussions. That included a period during the calamity of the Afghan withdrawal.
One official is quoted as admitting on one occasion in 2021 that Biden “has good days and bad days, and today was a bad day so we’re going to address this tomorrow.” That was just after he was elected.
Yet, Biden was kept within the protective cocoon of media that did not press the issue and was infamous for ignoring scandals while asking Biden about his choice of ice cream on a given day.
Now, some media outlets are re-positioning on the issue as they prepare to resume hard questioning and investigations in the new Trump Administration . . . after a four-year hiatus.
Suddenly, everyone is shocked to learn that Biden was mentally diminished and blaming nameless staff for misleading them.
One exception this week was Chris Cillizza, who served as CNN’s editor-at-large before leaving the network in 2022. On YouTube, Cillizza stated, “As a reporter, I have a confession to make” and admitted “I should have pushed harder earlier for more information about Joe Biden’s mental and physical well-being and any signs of decline.”
Now, everyone likes a redemptive sinner and I give Cillizza credit for admitting his own failure to pursue the story despite many critics objecting for years over the lack of such inquiries.
However, Cillizza only confessed to failing to pursue the story due to a fear of being accused of “age shaming” Biden. The suggestion is that identity politics chilled journalism, not the overwhelming media support for the President and countervailing opposition to Trump.
The “age shaming” excuse is difficult to square with the failure to pursue an array of other scandals during the term from influence peddling to policy debacles.
Nevertheless, Cillizza was remarkably frank that he was only able to push on the story after leaving CNN:
“I didn’t really push on it, if I’m being honest. Now, once I left CNN and once it became a little bit more clear to me about Biden’s age, I think I did write pretty regularly and talk pretty regularly about how I wasn’t sure that this guy was up to it. And then obviously, after the June 27 debate, everybody, including me, was writing and talking about it.”
Putting Cillizza’s statement aside, there is a notable effort by some in the media to retroactively resume journalism after years of docile coverage on issues such as Biden’s incapacity.
The belated interest in the story reflects not only the limits of modern journalism but the limits of the 25th Amendment. From the outset, there was concern over Biden’s acuity and stamina within the White House. It was hidden from the public. His cabinet members like DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, and others quashed claims of any diminishment with first-hand testimonials about how sharp and impressive the President was in meetings. Vice President Kamala Harris echoed those claims.
The Vice President and the cabinet are essential to the removal process under the 25th Amendment. Section 4 allows the removal of a president. One option is what I have called the “mutiny option.” It requires a vice president and a majority of the Cabinet to declare that the president is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office,” and notify Congress that the vice president intends to take over. If Vice President Kamala Harris could get eight Cabinet officers to go along with a letter to Congress, her status as the “Acting President” would likely be short-lived. Joe Biden would only have to declare to Congress that “no inability exists.” Biden would then resume his powers. That would then trigger a congressional fight.
In reality, the Biden term shows how they can often be part of the cover-up.
The 25th Amendment also does not define incapacity and having “good days and bad days” is unlikely to suffice. As I previously discussed, the issue of “disability” of a president was briefly raised in the Constitutional Convention in 1787. It was a delegate from Biden’s home state of Delaware who asked how they would respond to a disability, “and who is to be the judge of it?” John Dickinson’s question was left unanswered in the final version of the Constitution.
What followed were persistent controversies over succession. This issue came to a head after President Dwight D. Eisenhower suffered a stroke. After the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Congress finally addressed the issue in the 25th Amendment. The amendment addresses the orderly succession of power as well as temporary disabilities when presidents must undergo medical treatment or surgeries.
This process is even more unlikely to occur when the media has formed a protective line around a president.
The problem was never “age shaming,” it was a shameless effort to shield this president from tough questions and public exposure.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
Whether ‘you can fool some of the people all of the time’ or ‘the emperor has no clothes’, history repeats.
The appropriate response would be to impeach all cabinet members involved as they were concealing who was actually running the country.
In essence, what I call the “politburo” put party over country and has been doing so since Day 1. We were all asked to suspend belief in what we were seeing and told that we were voting for a “team,” not a guy. The more interesting question is who knew what during the 2020 primary process. His sister Val was reportedly telling people that he had dementia well before the primaries. Even after a dismal primary performance, Biden was shooed in and more qualified candidates were shown the door…who knew what and when???
Jonathan: Joe Biden is leaving office a month from now. Who really cares now about his supposed “mental decline”? The real “mental decline” is going on now in the House where Speaker Mike Johnson can’t seem to get enough votes to continue funding the government. So we are now facing a government shutdown tonight. Why?
There was a bipartisan bill that both the Dems and the Republicans had agreed to. That was until the unelected richest man in the world, Elon Musk, stepped in and nixed the deal–threatening to primary any Republican who voted for it. Three hours later the guy who is not yet president also demanded a non-starter–that any agreement should include raising the debt limit. That’s because DJT knows his plans to deport millions of immigrants and continue the tax cuts for him and his billionaire buddies will add trillions to the national debt and he doesn’t want to deal with that issue next year.
DJT and his Chancellor Elon Musk don’t care if there is a government shutdown tonight. DJT says Joe Biden can be blamed because he is still president. Many of DJT MAGA supporters will swallow that lie. The truth is that a government shutdown will have been solely caused by DJT and his puppet master Elon Musk. If you want to address “declining levels of acuity” you need look no further than those who now control the House of Representatives!
Dennis, I wrote this yesterday,
“What are you babbling about? We all knew Biden was mentally incompetent during his election campaign from the basement in 2020. Anyone with any degree of common sense knew that. I am expecting there to be tell all books about the Biden admin and reading that Harris maybe getting book deals, I would not be surprised if she was one of them. Whatever these “insiders” are now coming forth and telling us, most of us are just going to shrug and say, “Yeah, no kidding!” So the real question is who was running the country for the past four years, can they be held accountable for all the disasters they gave us? And if you have not noticed, electing a mentally incompetent, man with dementia was a threat to not only the nation but the world. That should be THE scandal of the century!”
And now that you were, once again, wrong, you are desperate to deflect from the reality of how much of a scandal this is.
Tell us Dennis, how does it feel to be proven so wrong, so many times?
I predict that whistleblowers will be lining up in droves once the DOJ changes hands.
OT:
I wondered about the competency and divided loyalties of public defenders and some of the independent attorneys in the J6 prosecutions.
This may answer some of the questions I have.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/12/newly-released-j6er-james-grant-lawsuit-update-exposes
Not to fear, we’re rolling out upstart lawyers faster than the Russkies churned out T-34 tanks in WWII.
“Meet Peter Park, possibly youngest person to pass California bar”
–By Debra Cassens Weiss, December 12, 2023, 9:21 am CST
“Park was only 17 years old when he passed the California bar exam on his first try, making him “the youngest person to ever pass” the state’s bar exam, according to a Dec. 6 press release by his employer. He took the exam in July and learned he passed Nov. 9. He turned 18 on Nov. 26, according to the Daily Journal.”
https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/meet-peter-park-possibly-the-youngest-person-to-pass-the-california-bar
Burning question of the day.
Will Trump be given a job in President Musk’s administration???
So funny I forgot to laugh.
Can the vice president and the cabinet be prosecuted for not discharging their constitutional duty today – RIGHT NOW – for not removing the commander in chief of our armed forces?
I would imagine that if there are medical records indicating the true nature of his dementia and when it began, there may be legal reasons for pursuing that.
Dear Prof Turley,
I believe Kamala still believes Joe is ‘sharp as a tack’. .. which makes the 25th mute, null and void.
While I consider TDS a disease/mental disorder, shielding the Bidens, Liz, et al, etc., etc. from legal consequences could be a crime.. . subject to presidential pardon!
Article II, Section 2, clause 1 . .. he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.
Nothing in there about ‘preemptive’ pardons. That is; crimes which Hunter, Liz, Schiff et el etc., etc. *’may have’* committed. That would make a mockery of the ‘rule of law’ and the idea of justice entirely.
Imo, the SCOTUS needs to take this up asap.
As always, it is my cherished hope that human-scum Joe Biden be impeached And Article 25’d sometime BEFORE he leaves office. .. then tarred, feathered and run out of town on a rail.
*the media can go suck eggs.
p.s. ‘sharp as a tack’ .. .
I agree that would be an interesting legal issue for the court to resolve. But under Article III there has to be a case including a plaintiff with standing. I wonder how that could be. Maybe the Trump DOJ if it decides to prosecute Hunter? Do you have any ideas on that?
Tbh, I’ve never had a good grasp on the courts notion of legal ‘standing’ old man.
If the Trump DoJ decided to prosecute Hunter, one would think they would have standing. .. assuming the FBI can locate the laptop from hell.
Imo, the SCOTUS needs to nip this willy-nilly preemptive pardon fever in the bud. .. before it gets out of hand entirely.
*I do have a firm grip on ‘genocide’ Joe’s outrageous malefactions.
Dementia notwithstanding, over the years I have asked for any record of anyone saying, “Joe Biden is a years long friend and I know him to be an honest man.” Never heard of anyone so indicating. Biden is a nasty man, now with a condition that can be no longer hidden.
Biden was mentally incompetent shouldn’t Trump or Congress be able to reverse many of his executive orders and mandates?
This is an interesting situation. If there are, as yet, hidden medical records indicating his dementia dating back to 2021, surely this should be hammered out as to how the constitution should deal with 2 things: 1) how legal are his executive orders if he were not mentally competent at the time of issuing them, and 2) how responsible for defrauding the citizenry by falsifying his mental state and allowing those not sworn in as president, to assume those powers while biden was not mentally capable of doing his job.
Everyone and anyone in the Biden administration who made any decision relative to the position of President of the United States and not allowed to do so by the constitution or laws of the United States should be dealt with harshly.
Sounds good, but how and by whom is that defined? I suspect the best we can hope for is more exposés and revelations. They have been slow in coming. Where does the White House doctor fit in the pantheon of liars and enablers? Will the historians who encouraged Biden’s overreaches be held accountable? Will any of our distinguished historians ever tell the truth about Biden’s awful term, Biden’s role and the roles of his officials? Not likely. And media will never own up to any failures, their or.Biden’s, wedded as they are to left-wing ideology. They also will never admit Trump’s successes. Historians and media are, in short, worthless.
Perhaps a truly functional DOJ and other government agencies can produce some important info on all of this. No wonder everyone on the left is begging for pre-emptive pardons.
And the media too… at the very least, we should know who, what they said, what they knew….
You may give journalists credit for admitting they should have done a better job, but sorry, I don’t. It’s like a body guard who looks on apathetically while his protectee gets beat up, doesn’t lift a finger, then visits him in the hospital and says, “He he I guess I should have done a better job.” The appropriate response is, “Get the F out of my sight you worthless lazy piece of sh—!”
What a tough spot. Trying to decide how to address a President with declining faculties. Except he was not a President when it was first noticed. That is a problem. Maybe the bigger question should be: when was it noticed first. I personally doubt it came on the night after he took the oath.
The second question should now be: who was running the country the entire time if Biden had declining faculties. I certainly understand the consternation this would cause both the White House and the Democratic party. It would certainly harm everyone including the Office of the President if a public fight ensued especially if Biden “has good days and bad days”. All it would take is a good day and the entire fiasco would look like a coup.
The problem is by the start of the second election cycle, Biden was being hidden and that speaks volumes of who is in control of the power. Even if one assumes this was done for all of the right reasons, it is a cheat the American people did not have the information. Not only that, the deck was cleared for a candidate they knew as not up to the task. The Democrats could have run a primary and allow the chips to fall where they may. They could have been a much stronger position or at least defendable if Biden would have won the primary again.
While I am torn over poking a sore spot, I am also torn over whether the people should just let it go. I cannot see how this is not investigated if for no other reason so it does not happen again. I am not so sure a spectacle is the right way to go, but neither am I sure that a spectacle is not warranted in this particular case. I do not believe this was a cabal to overthrow the Office of the Presidency, but it does feel nefarious. Either way, it cannot be allowed to happen again.
The ENTIRE truth of the biden crime family, the embedded government officials that facilitated his presidency.. all this has to be exposed as a lesson that the rule of law still exists here.
Dear Mr. Turley, the general public have known for the last 3 years, for sure that there was something wrong with President Biden. However, any mention of it brought hell on the head of anyone daring to even broach the subject. Now that the White House staff, democrats, and the legacy media have lied to us, what do we do about it? Thankfully Mr. Trump will be in office January 2025 and that day cannot come soon enough!! Democrats are out of power and the legacy media is still licking it’s wounds siding with the loser. Perhaps the best thing to do is to sit back and watch their circular firing squad to its work, as it is doing now.
Wait, WSJ and commenters are saying Mayorkss lied to us? Mayorkas? We’ll, I never….!
That is not enough, by a long shot, but we may not get much more. Democrats/media are addicted to lying, deception and subterfuge, and, widespread as that is, they may never shake it
While Biden has suffered from cognitive decline throughout his term, I believe the major decisions were all his. These included:
1. Opening the border;
2. Leaving Afghanistan by a date certain, regardless of conditions on the ground;
3. Refusing to engage with Russia ahead of the Ukraine invasion, or after it, to resolve the Ukraine and wider European security issues through negotiations;
4. Desperately seeking to re-engage with Iran while slighting Saudi Arabia;
5. Promoting energy policies dictated by “climate catastrophism;”
6. Ever more government spending despite rapidly increasing inflation;
7. Promoting “equity” policies based on critical race theory and transgenderism;
8. Adopting extreme COVID policies such as vaccine mandates;
9. Transferring student debt to the taxpayer; and
10. Demonising Trump/MAGA and unleashing lawfare against Trump and any political/ideological opponents.
While he may not have been capable of dealing with the details of implementation and assessment of these major policies, I believe he knew and approved all of them. They were all consistent with Democratic thinking at the time. Saying it was Biden’s cognitive decline that brought about the disastrous consequences of his regime misses the point. It was Biden’s and the Democrats’ deliberate policy choices that are to blame.
Agreed 100%. “Democratic (left-wing/media/academia) thinking.”
Daniel,
Great comment!
* Can congress invoke the 25th by a super majority? Can a wife seek guardianship in court?
No but under A25.4 Congress can pass a law designating some “body” to do so by simple majority (not super majority). That other body could be itself or either chamber or any other “body.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-fifth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
Does no one understand “continuity and stability of government” and why the President is no more than an interchangeable cog in our governing system with no more power than to sit and watch?
The Union of the States assembled in congress is the sovereign in the United States and the Established Government Authority, and if you don’t know what that means, then that is the problem we face in the United States today, not incompetent, miscreant, and malfeasant presidents and politician!
Where do executive orders fall under your description of government?
There are no Executive Orders established by the Constitution of the United States. The closest thing to an executive order is when their is a question of the intent of a law or how the law is implemented, the president transmits those concerns to Congress for their consideration, when the States give the President clarification on those matters of intent and implementation, then the President transmits those clarifications to the Executive Department tasked with implementing the law.
The President has absolutely no authority to interpret, or otherwise determine the implementation, of laws, as they must take care that the laws are “faithfully” executed, that means the President only presides over the operation of the Executive Departments to ensure that the laws are “faithfully” executed, as the States as the Union assembled in Congress determined and intended!
“Now, some media outlets are re-positioning on the issue as they prepare to resume hard questioning and investigations in the new Trump Administration . . . after a four-year hiatus.” A free ride for Democrats and an ‘all out assault’ on Republicans!
It begs the question, who was running things? Well, I have a theory about that: Jill Biden. She had to know it was hard on Joe to be pumped full of adrenalin or whatever to prop him up for four long years. Yet another four years?? It was already elder abuse in 2020.
My guess is that she was drunk with power and didn’t want to let go. When one looks at the kinds of decisions that were made over the last four years, it looks just like what an overeducated, cloistered, privileged, suburban liberal would insist on, and she does fit that profile. Given her determination to keep the old geezer in office, I have to suspect her motivation was personal power.
I’m looking forward to the tell-alls to see if my theory pans out. Even if it doesn’t, the post-mortem of this administration is likely to be juicy. Just don’t expect HBO to make a miniseries out of it. That would violate the HBO’s Prime Directive: never give up the con.
And whether Jill was running things or not, DHS should take the old man away from her. She clearly doesn’t understand caregiving.