Biden's Chief of Staff Jeff Zients: After the Debate, I Suggested Biden Take a Cognitive Test (which He Refused)

I wrote about this last week, based on National Review reporting by Audrey Fahlberg.

But this is new.

Former White House chief of staff Jeff Zients revealed to Congress Thursday that former President Joe Biden's memory and decision-making capability deteriorated while in office, according to a source familiar with the ex-aide's transcribed interview.

Zients, who declined to answer reporter questions, also told the House Oversight Committee that he told White House physician Kevin O'Connor that Biden should have "a full medical workup" -- including a cognitive exam -- after his disastrous June 27, 2024, debate performance, added the source.

In that forum, the Democrat stumbled over his words, spoke with a soft and raspy voice, and delivered non-sequiturs about public policy -- declaring at one point that his administration had "finally beat Medicare."

Biden's campaign and White House flacks dismissed the fumbles at the time, claiming the president had a "cold" -- though he was spotted within minutes of the debate's end at a Waffle House.

But Zients claimed the "mental freezes" aides observed were unprecedented, the source related.

"Unprecedented." We in the public saw them all the time, but Biden's chief of staff never, ever saw them before. He swears. Def don't indict him for perjury.

Ex-senior White House communications adviser Anita Dunn and former national security adviser Jake Sullivan apparently stressed the importance of a cognitive exam, while former Cabinet officials such as Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and VA Secretary Denis McDonough -- as well as Secretary of State Antony Blinken -- didn't think Biden had the juice for a second term.

Several donors also expressed alarm, with one suggesting that the president's use of a teleprompter to address an intimate campaign fundraiser was concerning.

...

Over the course of a six-hour grilling by Oversight staff, Zients also revealed that Biden began having "difficulty remembering dates and names," while "decisions that once required three meetings eventually began to require a fourth," according to the first source.

Those age-related issues were also a subject of conversation in the West Wing throughout the former president's term, with first lady Jill Biden asking that her husband not be "over-scheduled" and be allowed to "return to the residence" earlier in the day, this person said.

This codger "worked" from the crack of 11am to Early Bird Special midnight, 4pm.

Damn those are the exact hours I try to keep.

Maybe I need a cognitive test.

...

[Biden's neurologist and dementia doctor] O'Connor, who purportedly considered giving Biden the cognitive test, and Jill Biden's chief of staff Anthony Bernal previously pleaded the Fifth Amendment and declined to answer questions from the Republican-led panel -- and Zients spoke with both of them about the president's "age issues," according to the first source.

This isn't in the story, but we've heard this before: Supposedly, when it was proposed that Biden take a cognitive test -- I mean, one they would disclose to the public; I'm 100% sue-me certain that they gave him ones before that he'd failed -- they decided against it because there was no political upside for Biden.

Well, there would have been a political upside if he passed it, because by then 60% of the public said publicly that he was mentally impaired and the other 40% lied.

So when they say there would be no "political upside," that's because they knew he'd already begun failing them in 2015.

posted by Ace at 12:07 PM

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