President Biden’s onstage performance in Atlanta last Thursday offered fresh evidence of what many Americans have suspected for years now: The 81-year-old incumbent appears to be battling severe age-related cognitive decline.
In the wake of the debate, new reporting suggests that Biden’s aides have taken great pains in recent months to shield the aging president from reporters, the public, and even White House residence staff. He is reportedly more engaged between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., when aides are likely to schedule his public events. And while the president is known to make gaffes in his public appearances, “people in the room with him more recently said that the lapses seemed to be growing more frequent, more pronounced and more worrisome,” the New York Times reports. He is often surrounded by staffers on his walk to Marine One, and he now wears larger-soled sneakers in an apparent effort to prevent tripping. He holds far fewer press conferences than his recent predecessors and avoids sit-down interviews like the plague. And when the president does appear at public events, he almost always relies on a teleprompter.
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