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Obama Staffers Concerned As Biden Looks Confused On Late Night TV

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[The Biden White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons]
Walt RasingerBy
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Earlier in the week, New Conservative Post noted that donors who have met with President Joe Biden have expressed concerns about his lack of memory. 

“President Biden has been using notecards in closed-door fundraisers, calling on prescreened donors and then consulting his notes to provide detailed answers, according to people familiar with the routine,” according to Axios.

Biden’s reliance on notecards to help explain his own policy positions — on questions he knows are coming — is raising concerns among some donors about Biden’s age.”

Now, Obama staffers are coming clean, too, saying that Biden mental status may end up being a deciding factor in 2024. 

In an episode of Pod Save America, former Obama administration figures who worked directly with then-Vice President Biden said he appears to have deteriorated and that his health and mental acuity will pose a serious problem for Democrats in 2024, writes The Washington Examiner.

“If you watch Joe Biden speak, oftentimes, he sounds frail, and he sounds more frail than he used to, even in 2019 and 2020,” chief Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau said.

“The voice sounds frail, and he shuffles more because of the arthritis in his back,” he continued.

Favreau proposed a risky strategy to combat public concerns over Biden’s mental acuity: getting him out in public more. While it is risky, he argued it would help combat the public perception that Biden is being overwhelmed by world events. Former Obama speechwriter Jon Lovett agreed.

“I’m sure that going out there means more missteps … more gaffes that start circulating, but if you don’t view Biden being out there as a net positive, then the argument he shouldn’t be running is right,” Lovett said.

Biden tried to stave off concerns by going on “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” a show recorded at 4 PM, to make jokes in front of a friendly audience. But despite having everything set up for him to succeed, the president still appeared to make gaffes that left some scratching their heads. 

“What’s your 2024 agenda? Because I feel like we live in such crazy times that that is one of the things I feel we hear less about,” Meyers asked.

“Look, the 2020 agenda is to finish the job,” Biden said, going on to tout the country as having the world’s strongest economy. “Inflation’s down… 14 million new jobs, unemployment rate is the lowest it’s been for the longest time, we’re building wealth for people. We have to do more.” 

The visit with Meyers also led to a strange scene where the former SNL alum and the president did what this White House always does when he is trying to seem with it: go get ice cream. 

In what was described by multiple reporters as “surreal,” Biden didn’t have the wherewithal to put down his ice cream cone while discussing the ongoing war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas.  

The interview was set up to try and allow the media to drag Biden’s numbers against Trump back up by turning the conversation back on the former president and his recent mental slip-ups. 

The New York Times wrote, “Mr. Meyers jokingly told the president that he had obtained classified information indicating that “you are currently 81 years old.”

Mr. Biden went along with the joke. “Who the hell told you that?” he asked. “That’s classified!”

He then went on to jab Mr. Trump, who is 77, over a video in which he seems to call his wife, Melania Trump, by another name. ‘You got to take a look at the other guy,’ Mr. Biden said. ‘He’s about as old as I am, but he can’t remember his wife’s name.’

Turning more serious, Mr. Biden added that the contest is not about how old the candidates are. ‘It’s about how old your ideas are,’ he said. “Look, this is a guy who wants to take us back. He wants to take us back on Roe v. Wade. He wants to take us back on a whole range of issues that are — 50, 60 years, they’ve been solid American positions.'”

Red State noted that Biden and Meyers were “spreading a hoax that Trump called Melania “Mercedes” when he was at CPAC. But the video doesn’t show that at all. Trump praises his wife and then appears to thank Mercedes Schlapp, who is a host of CPAC, for the cheers for her.” 

For weeks, polling has shown Biden trailing Trump in every swing state.

[Read More: Sonia Sotomayor Traveling With ‘Medic’]

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