Following Joe Biden’s horrendous debate performance, current and former advisers say the quiet part out loud and reveal what the president is like behind the scenes.
The White House and campaign blame a “cold” for Biden’s low and sometimes hard-to-understand voice. Others say that’s just how the president is now on a day-to-day basis.
Former White House deputy director of photography Chandler West wrote in an Instagram story: “It’s time for Joe to go.”
“I know a lot of these people and I know how the White House works,” West added. “They’ll say he has a ‘cold’ or he just had a ‘bad night,’ but for weeks and months, privately, they’ve all said what we saw last night: Joe is not as strong as he was a couple of years ago.”
The Biden campaign tried to downplay the issue, saying the performance in the car crash was simply a “slow start.”
Current and former staffers say close aides have protected President Joe Biden from those inside and outside the White House since he took office, especially when it came to issues related to his health.
Former White House deputy director of photography Chandler West (pictured) wrote in an Instagram story: “I know a lot of these people and I know how the White House works. They will say he has a ‘cold’ or just had a ‘bad night,’ but for weeks and months, privately, everyone has said what we saw last night: Joe is not as strong as he was a couple of years ago.
Vice President Kamala Harris deflected pressure in a tense post-debate interview about what Biden is like every day.
‘The person we saw tonight, the president we saw tonight on that stage: Is he like this every day?’ CNN anchor Anderson Cooper asked Harris.
“The Joe Biden that I work with every day is someone who, as I said, has acted in a way that has involved bringing people into the Oval Office, Republicans and Democrats, to engage in a way that is extraordinary in these times.” days, because it just doesn’t happen, but Joe Biden can make it happen,” he responded, completely avoiding the essence of the question.
West, who served in the White House from January 2021 to May 2022, he told Axios: ‘The debate was not the first bad day, nor will it be the last.’
Journalists have complained for years about access to the president and say those charged with supervising him are working to give him as little off-script time with the press as possible.
There is speculation that those closest to the president, primarily first lady Jill Biden, were protecting him since he took office, especially after his limitations were fully exposed in Thursday night’s debate.
A former White House residence official told Axios that Jill was “very protective of the president” and the first lady’s top aide, Anthony Bernal, “just protects her, and they often wouldn’t let us do anything for them.” “.
“The divide between the family and the staff at the residence was very large, very divided,” the former official added. “It shouldn’t be that way and it usually isn’t, even in the Trump White House.”
Vice President Kamala Harrison deflected when CNN pressed her on what Biden is like every day after his disastrous debate performance. In the photo: Harris during the election campaign in New York on June 21, 2024.
From his first months in office, the residence staff felt that Biden’s closest allies were trying to keep everything related to his health secret.
For example, during a very heated Independence Day celebration on the South Lawn on July 4, 2021, Biden returned to the White House, where the door abruptly closed behind him, so that butlers and other residence staff were unable to assist the president.
Aides suggested Biden was overheated, but it raised suspicions among staff and a consensus that they were creating a barrier around health-related issues.
A poll released Sunday reveals that 72 percent of voters do not believe Biden has the cognitive faculties for another term. This is a seven percent increase from the same poll taken in early June before the debate.
Former White House physician Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) has repeatedly questioned Biden’s physical and cognitive health.
He suggested that debate preparation for seven days at Camp David was a way to prepare the drug cocktail just before the confrontation with Trump.