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President Joe Biden exhibited "troubling signs of decline" during a series of Democratic fundraisers in June 2023, former Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward revealed in his latest book, War. The revelation raises further questions about Kamala Harris's continued refusal to acknowledge any concern about Biden's mental fitness.
During one event at the California home of Microsoft executive Kevin Scott in June 2023, guests were reportedly aghast at the president's "frighteningly awful" performance. "It was 'like your 87-year-old senile grandfather' wandering around the room, saying to women guests, 'your eyes are so beautiful,'" Woodward wrote. Biden, who was 80 at the time, "could not wait to sit down and only took two pre-arranged questions," one donor recalled. Nevertheless, the president struggled to stay on topic despite carrying note cards with the answers printed out.
At another fundraiser in New York City later that month, Biden left attendees "surprised and unsettled" when he could not think of the word "veteran" and had to ask the group of donors "to help him find the right word for someone who had served in the military," Woodward wrote.
Democratic donor Bill Reichblum described Biden's "painful" appearance at a fundraiser in Maryland on June 27, 2023, several days after the Washington Free Beacon published Volume 48 of our "Senior Moments with Joe Biden" video series. "He never completed a sentence," Reichblum said. "He told the same story three times in exactly the same way and it meandered so much. … It was striking." Woodward wrote that Reichblum likened Biden to "an elderly grandparent or parent who talks and talks but 'makes no sense.'"
Woodward's reporting is the most recent example of the secret panic among Democrats over Biden's indisputable cognitive decline. Alas, the majority of these stories came to light in the days following the president's disastrous debate performance on June 27, amid a concerted effort to force him to withdraw from the race. Journalists were widely criticized for failing—until the last minute, when Biden's electability seemed in doubt—to report what most voters considered to be obvious, according to numerous polls. Doing what comes naturally, journalists dismissed these criticisms as a conservative "conspiracy."
Many have wondered when Vice President Harris, who eagerly vouched for Biden's cognitive fitness before and after his debate disaster, first noticed the president's declining abilities. Because she had to have noticed something. Everyone else did. It would be implausible to claim otherwise. Right? Harris was never asked about it until last week during her interview with Bret Baier on Fox News, when she asserted (vaguely) that Biden "has the judgment and the experience to do exactly what he has done in making very important decisions on behalf of the American people." Pressed to provide a real answer, Harris pivoted to attacking Trump. "Brett, Joe Biden is not on the ballot, and Donald Trump is," she said. "I think the American people have a concern about Donald Trump."
NBC News correspondent Hallie Jackson asked Harris the same question on Tuesday, but the VP's answer was just as evasive the second time around. She said Biden had a "bad debate" while implying that he might have had other unrelated reasons for dropping out of the race. "Well, you'd have to ask him if [the debate was] the only reason why," Harris said, somewhat ominously. "I am running for president of the United States. Joe Biden is not." Harris went on to praise Biden for doing "work that has been about being a leader on what we have done to fix so much of what has been broken," whatever that means.
Journalist Mary Katharine Ham commended Jackson for seeking some clarity on the rather important issue of when Biden became incapable of doing his job—something that she and many Americans "would like to know before some Politico reporter's book comes out in 18 [months]."
WATCH: Joe Biden's Senior Moment of the Week (Rest in Peace Edition)
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