‘Hand holding’: White House aides hid Joe Biden’s mental decline, explosive report claims

Joe Biden’s White House aides went to unprecedented lengths to hide his mental decline from the beginning of his presidency, an explosive new report claims.

Joe Biden’s White House aides went to unprecedented lengths to hide his mental decline from the beginning of his presidency, an explosive new report claims.

Mr Biden, now 82, was forced to pull out of his re-election bid after a disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump in June raised concerns about his apparent diminished mental acuity.

But according to nearly 50 aides, Democratic donors and politicians who spoke to The Wall Street Journal, Mr Biden’s struggles as the oldest President to ever sit in the Oval Office were apparent from day one.

The report, published on Thursday, shines new light on the extreme lengths Mr Biden’s inner circle took to shield the commander-in-chief from the public eye, even rescheduling meetings and appearances after rambling performances.

“They body him to such a high degree,” one person told the newspaper, recalling the “hand holding” by his small group of aides that was unlike anything other recent presidents have had.

One former aide recalled how, if Mr Biden was having an off day, meetings could be scrapped altogether. They recalled one occasion in 2021 when a national security official explained to another aide why a meeting had to be rescheduled.

Joe Biden speaks during a Hanukkah holiday reception at the White House. Picture: Jim Watson/AFP

“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, according to the report.

The protective circle around Mr Biden was erected from the start of his presidency, at the height of the Covid pandemic, with staff limiting his in-person interactions to prevent him catching the virus.

But the shell constructed around the President was never fully taken down, as it served to prevent him from making gaffes of missteps.

Mr Biden was even shielded to an unprecedented degree from his own cabinet secretaries, congressional committee chairs and other high-ranking officials, according to the report, which noted that over four years, the President held just nine full cabinet meetings — three in 2021, two in 2022, three in 2023 and one in 2024.

By comparison, Barack Obama and Donald Trump respectively held 19 and 25 in their first terms.

In the first few months of his term, White House officials noticed that Mr Biden became tired and would make mistakes if meetings went too long.

They issued a directive to members of Congress and Democratic allies that one-on-one meetings with the President should be short and focused, and ideally meetings would start later in the day.

Reports of Mr Biden’s absent-mindedness early in the morning at late at night first emerged in July, after White House aides revealed that the President was prone to gaffes before 10am and after 4pm, and liked to be in bed by 8pm.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Mr Biden’s relationship with his closest appointees including Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen grew increasingly distant over the course of his term, even around key events such as the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal in August 2021.

When one-on-one meetings were scheduled, they were typically virtual rather than in-person.

At least one cabinet member stopped requesting calls with the President after being repeatedly rebuffed, a former senior cabinet aide told the newspaper.

During public events, aides would stay close by Mr Biden’s side, often repeating basic instructions to him such as where to enter or exit a stage.

Mr Biden’s team even tasked campaign co-chairman and Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg to find a voice coach to improve his raspy whisper.

Hints that all was not right were evident to the public throughout Mr Biden’s presidency — he was often spotted reading from large note cards with explicit directions including which reporters to call on and what to do during events, and he frequently made rambling gaffes whenever he went off-teleprompter.

The President’s sit-down with Robert Hur, the special counsel investigating Mr Biden’s handling of classified documents, was a particular headache.

A new report details how Mr Biden was closely shielded by his inner circle. Picture: Samuel Corum/AFP

In a series of three-hour meetings in the week leading up to the interview — which Mr Biden insisted on doing — he couldn’t recall lines his team had previously discussed with him, according to the report.

The interview itself did not go well. Mr Biden made multiple blunders and was unable to remember key dates, including when he served as Vice President or the year his son Beau Biden died.

Mr Hur, in his final report in February, explained why he declined to bring charges against Mr Biden, saying a jury would view the President as a “well meaning, elderly man” with a “poor memory”.

The White House has disputed the characterisation of Mr Biden in The Wall Street Journal article.

“President Biden speaks with members of his cabinet daily, and with most members multiple times a week, staying close with them about implementation of key laws and strengthening our national security,” deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement to the NY Post.

“President Biden 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, his active solicitation of diverse opinions from outside experts, everyday Americans, members of Congress and other elected officials, his cabinet, and historians, and because of his determination to fulfil a big-picture economic agenda that realised major priorities Democrats have worked toward for decades.”

Mr Bates added, “During every presidency, there are inevitably some in Washington who do not receive as much time with whomever the President is as they would prefer … but that never means that the President isn’t engaging thoroughly with others, as this President does.”

Originally published as ‘Hand holding’: White House aides hid Joe Biden’s mental decline, explosive report claims