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Staffers for Joe Biden have witnessed at least 15 incidents in the last year and a half “where the president has appeared like he did at that horror show” of a debate, Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein said this week.
Biden’s performance at the June 27 debate has been widely viewed as dismal, with his voice appearing frail and raspy as he lost his train of thought and made several gaffes.
Bernstein appeared on CNN on Monday, saying that people close to Biden have told him in the last six months that he’s shown signs of cognitive decline, adding that his sources have gone to former White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain with their concerns during the last year regarding Biden losing his train of thought.
The journalist also mentioned a fundraiser at the Four Seasons in New York last summer where Biden grew very “stiff” and that it was “almost a kind of rigor mortis.”
But Bernstein did say that sources insist Biden is “sharp” in his national security meetings.
The journalist said he has been speaking to people “who are very close to President Biden, who love him, have supported him ... among them are some people who’ve raised a lot of money for him.”
“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,” he said.
He added: “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.”
Bernstein noted that Klain “supervised” the debate prep sessions at Camp David in Maryland and that the “people I’ve talked to have all been to Ron Klain in the last year to say we have a problem.”
“There have been numerous instances where the president has lost his train of thought, can’t pick it up again, there was a fundraiser at which he started at the podium and then he became very stiff according to the people there as if it were almost a kind of rigor mortis,” Bernstein continued.
“He became very stiff and a chair had to be brought for him to do the latter part of the event,” he said.
The Watergate reporter said those ringing the alarm have “been pushed back repeatedly whenever it’s been brought up.”
But he also noted how he’s been told for two years about “how sharp” Biden is in his national security meetings. “He has special briefing books on Ukraine, on the situation in Gaza that go down into very detailed military reports. He has an absolute command of the facts. He’s sharp as can be.”
Bernstein said, “We’re clearly dealing with two sets of one person.”
