For at least one member of the Trump-hating and obscenely pro-Biden media, this week's startling reports in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times about President Joe Biden's mental incompetence were too much.
Former CNN political writer Chris Cillizza, one of many who covered Biden from his disastrous first day in office, admitted he should have been tougher on Biden.
Siritza's serious charges raise the obvious question of whether his colleagues will make a fuss or pretend the revelations never happened.
report
The devastating portrait of Biden painted him as an out-of-touch president whose top aides formed a defensive formation and kept his cabinet members from revealing as much as possible.
“In an effort to adapt the White House to the needs of diminished leadership, the White House directed visitors to focus on meetings, including senior Democrats and some Cabinet members, including Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. “His interactions with the U.S. and other powerful secretaries such as Treasury Department Janet Yellen were infrequent or diminished,” the Journal found.
Some Congressional leaders have struggled to get the president to listen at key moments, such as before the disastrous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Senior advisers often fill positions that some administration officials and members of Congress thought Biden should fill, including national security adviser Jake Sullivan, senior adviser Steve Ricchetti, and Lael Brainard. Persons such as the chairman of the National Economic Council or their predecessors were often in the position of successor. Between the presidents.
Biden was so frail that he even had to cancel important meetings, as happened in the spring of 2021. “He has good days and bad days, and today was a bad day, so we will discuss this tomorrow,” the official told aides. .
Fortunately, terrorists did not attack the United States when Biden was having a “bad day.”
Two days before the Journal article was published, the Times published a similar report about Biden's deteriorating mental and physical condition and how it affected his behavior while traveling abroad. . The newspaper called him “tired” and said: “It is difficult to imagine that he seriously thought he could continue working in one of the world's most stressful jobs for another four years.”
Reports in the Journal and Times have painted the president as unfit for work for years, but during a disastrous debate with Trump in July, confirmation that he was simply unfit for the job emerged. surfaced. Aides told Axios that Biden told them he would adjourn at around 4 p.m., and that Biden told the Democratic governor that he wasn't feeling well after 8 p.m.
Similarly, two top national security officials admitted to an undercover reporter that Biden was simply not qualified for the job. Some say Biden's “mental capacity is declining,” he “can't say a word,” and his close aide confesses, “I can't believe this wasn't a scandal from earlier.” Some people do.
My fault…
So Syriza apologized for allowing White House aides to get away with a deception that ended in another debate with Trump and Democrats kicking Trump out of the campaign for a second term. This was the setting that made this possible.
“As a reporter, I have a confession to make,” Shilitza began.
I should have asked for more information sooner about Joe Biden's physical and mental health and signs of decline. Now, let me explain.
Joe Biden was president from 2020 to 2024. I worked at CNN until 2022. During that time, in the early part of 2020 to 2022 when I was at CNN…Republicans were emailing me regularly and saying, “Hey, we're going to do this. To Joe Biden and how is he doing? Are you a 76, 77, 78 year old man? ”And I sort of ignore them. …What I'm trying to say is, “Well, there's no clear evidence that he's declining.”
Of course, that's nonsense. In Biden's case, there was abundant evidence that he was very close to getting a break and a one-way trip to a nursing home, if not hospice care.
Mr. Sillizza said Mr. Biden's palace guards did not ask further questions because they were “absolutely adamant” that asking questions about Mr. Biden's mental acuity or physical fitness was in itself “embarrassing for his age.” .
So, “To be honest, I didn't push myself too hard,” Schritza confessed.
By the time he left CNN, “Biden's age was slowly becoming clearer,” and Biden's performance in the debates made his condition undeniable.
“There were two articles by the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal about the decline of Joe Biden and how perhaps we should have reported then what we knew then and what we know now. ,” Shiritza continued. Then he read both stories.
He again acknowledged that he should have “applied more pressure” to Biden's aides who clearly lied about his condition.
Biden's “bad days” are “a little bit concerning, and it raises the question of when did people who were close to him find out?”
What did they know and why didn't they share? I will protect Biden's privacy. But he's the president of the United States, right? For example, this isn't just your grandpa who wants to take your car keys, but has no idea how to approach you.
This is a sitting president who will continue to be president for another six months after (the debate). And we don't know how long these signs of physical and mental decline have been present.
That's also wrong. “We” knew.
Sillizza said Biden's aides continued to “box him in” and shamed journalists into not asking questions about Biden's condition, saying he and other journalists “should have been more forceful.” Ta.
I'll watch over Trump
So Schritza will continue to keep a close eye on Trump because he is 78 years old, he said.
Even though (Biden) had good days and bad days, he had bad days, and those bad days were pretty bad. And when you're president of the United States, there are no good days or bad days. You must always lead a good day in terms of mental, cognitive and physical abilities. So I think this is a lesson that we have to learn going forward. Because, again, if Donald Trump is president for four years, he will be the oldest president in history.
Again, asking these questions is not a partisan thing, so I'm going to be mindful of that. It's journalism's job to ask those questions, and I should have been more proactive and less willing to accept, “No, he's fine.”
What is the admission problem at Shiritza? In 2021, under the heading “Republicans continue to try to make Biden's mental competency an issue,” he wrote:
Bottom line: This is the kind of shoddy lowest common denominator politics that keeps people out of public life. If Republicans have any evidence that Biden is declining, they should bring it to the fore. If not, you should stop what you're doing. immediately.
As Shilitza acknowledged in his apology, they tried to bring it to the fore. he ignored them.
H/T: Real Clear Politics
