So much for “cheap fakes.”
European leaders were “shocked” by the stark decline in President Biden’s physical and mental fitness when he attended the G7 summit in Italy last month, the New York Times reported late Tuesday — the latest in a series of belated disclosures about the 81-year-old president’s diminished condition.
Since Biden shocked the watching world with his disastrous performance at last week’s first presidential debate against Donald Trump in Atlanta, nearly half a dozen reporters and media outlets have rushed out scoops detailing the extent of the president’s deterioration over recent weeks, months and years as calls grow for Biden to drop his re-election bid.
Monday evening, Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein said on CNN that he knew of “15, 20 occasions in the last year-and-a-half when the president has appeared somewhat as he did” during the debate.
On Tuesday, Politico reported that Biden had been kept to a “carefully managed” schedule meant to limit the number of early morning and evening events — and that first lady Jill Biden had complained in March 2021 that her husband’s first solo news conference as president had run too long — while Axios revealed over the weekend that the president is only at his most “dependably engaged” between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.
The Times report quoted a senior European official as saying Biden seemed “out of it” at points during the gathering in southern Italy and that the president appeared less robust physically than the last time the official had seen him the previous fall.
The same European official found that it was challenging to start a conversation with the commander in chief as he moved about the conference.
Meanwhile, European leaders, including host Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, discussed Biden’s condition “privately among themselves” and made a point to slow their pace when walking together to avoid embarrassing the oldest president in American history.
When Biden seemed awkward or clumsy in front of the media, European leaders “closed ranks,” according to this official, shielding the president from cameras in order to give him time to get it together.
One of those awkward moments came when Biden wandered away from his fellow leaders during a skydiving demonstration to talk to a parachutist, prompting Meloni to fetch him by the arm and bring him back to where the heads of government were waiting to greet the paratroopers.
After The Post reported on that moment and a subsequent occasion days later at which Biden was led off the stage at a Hollywood fundraiser by former President Barack Obama, the White House claimed outlets who covered the incidents were relaying on “cheap fakes” to paint an unflattering picture of the president’s condition.
The Times itself indulged the administration, writing a June 21 story titled: “How Misleading Videos Are Trailing Biden as He Battles Age Doubts.”
Two administration officials blamed the crowded and confusing hallways of the summit hotel for the president’s behavior at the gathering of world leaders, insisting that Biden was sharp and articulate in his meetings.
White House senior deputy press secretary Andrew Bates told The Post that Biden is “unflinchingly capable and fighting for American families, with sharpness and resolve, every moment of every day – whether it’s managing rapidly-evolving national security events in the Situation Room or calling members of Congress late at night to pass the biggest climate investments in history.”
Bates highlighted quotes from German Chancellor Olaf Scholtz praising Biden as “someone who is very clear, who knows exactly what he is doing” and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu describing the president as “very clear and very focused” in phone conversations and during in-person meetings in Tel-Aviv last October.
However, multiple former officials expressed doubt to the Times that in his present condition Biden could go toe-to-toe with an US adversary such as Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“I just don’t know,” a former American official who assisted with preparations for the G7 summit told the outlet when asked if they could imagine Biden in the same room with the Russian tyrant.
“No,” a former senior European official responded bluntly to the same question.
Biden has resisted calls from Democratic strategists, donors and electeds calling on him to end his re-election bid in the wake of his debate performance.
He would be 86 years old at the end of a second four-year term.
