The scrutiny of President Joe Biden’s mental and physical fitness took a dramatic turn in 2024, igniting a firestorm of debate across the political spectrum. What began as whispers over Biden’s age and cognitive abilities soon evolved into a full-fledged national conversation, with Biden’s supporters fiercely defending him, even as his critics pointed to increasingly concerning public moments.
As the dust settled after the election and the Democrats were left with no control of the White House, Senate, or House, the cries of frustration from their ranks grew louder. But one thing seems clear in hindsight: the DNC’s lack of acknowledgment of its mistakes left the party scrambling in the aftermath of a political defeat.
It first started when the mental capacity of Pres. Biden came under scrutiny. For much of his early campaign, Biden supporters came to his defense. Rep Robert Garcia, Homeland Security Committee called him “sharp and focused” in a February 2024 interview on CNN shown on Fox News on The Ingram Angle.
Joe Scarborough took it even further on MSNBC in March saying “He’s far beyond cogent. I think he’s better than he’s ever been… and eff you if you cant handle the truth. This version of Biden intellectually, analytically, is the best Biden ever.”
But then the Presidential Debate happened.
In the immediate aftermath, Van Jones reacted in an interview: “‘That was painful’ he said on CNN. “He loves his country and he’s doing the best that he can. But he had a test to meet tonight to restore confidence of the country and of the base and he failed to do that.”
Before this, the White House regularly defended Biden’s mental and physical wellbeing. In early July, Jacqui Heinrich took Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre to task in a press briefing: “The administration strongly criticized the media for clips showing the President appearing to be confused, freezing at times, and you called it cheap fakes, misinformation, disinformation, and in one case you implied a product of Artificial Intelligence, calling it deepfakes, do you have any regret over using that language?” The press secretary replied: “Not at all and let me be clear, it was a certain part of the media.” One way to interpret what the press secretary was saying? It was all fake news.
The flip flop was fast. CNN had been mostly positive towards Biden throughout his campaign. But after the Presidential debate, in which Biden failed to perform at a high level, the criticism started from all sides, with numerous pundits saying it was bad.
Some people weren’t as surprised. In 2023 on his Fox News show, Sean Hannity pointed to his public appearance in Virginia Beach, noting that Biden looked “lost” and “confused.” Then Hannity showed four clips where Biden fumbled on his words.
He wasn’t just telling his viewers, he was showing them.
He wasn’t the only one. On July 11, 2023, Megyn Kelly on the Megyn Kelly Show did a segment in which she talked to Dr. Drew Pinky about Pres. Biden’s cognitive decline.
But after the debate, the headlines pointing to these issues were endless. One example is from the Wall Street Journal in December 2024: How the White House Functioned With a Diminished Biden in Charge.
It’s interesting in hindsight to note that only the republicans or conservative voices called out Pres. Biden, while the White House, along with other media sources, said Biden was in shape.
It was the debate itself and his poor showing that launched pressure from the Democrats for him to step down. Afterward, numerous public figures, including George Clooney, came out in an OP ED piece saying Biden should not be the nominee in July, after hosting a fundraiser with him the month before getting $30 million.
If the Democrats were truly invested in the safety of their party and America, they would have acknowledged the truth about Biden and held a primary for the Democratic nominee. But that didn’t happen.
Kamala Harris ran in 2024 because she was the sitting vice president and Biden anointed her when he stepped down. But there was pushback that there was no wider vote that led her to be the nominee by the American Democratic voters in the primaries.
And in the past, the American people had demonstrated they might not choose her. She was the first to drop out of the presidential race in 2020.
In 2024, either they believed she had no real shot and ran her anyway, or they truly believed she could win. If the latter is true, she would likely be judged by her time in Biden’s administration.
Many Americans pointed to the following issues when polls asked them why they wouldn’t support Harris for President. There was the Afghanistan withdrawal where 13 troops died, Russia and Ukraine got into a messy war, inflation rose under Biden, extreme illegal migrant crime, and the handling of the conflict in Gaza. And she didn’t distance herself from the Biden administration’s decisions in any of those conflicts.
On The View, on October 8, 2024, Harris was asked if there would be something she would have done differently than Biden and she said “There is not a thing that comes other than mind.”
According to a Gallup poll during October of 2024, Biden had an approval rating of 41 percent. With an approval rating that low, Harris should have been wise to own up to the controversial issues during the Biden administration.
On election night at 10:57pm, CNN’s Jake Tapper and John King were looking at the election map on the screen and King showed Tapper the map where Harris was leading Biden on 2020, and Tapper asked “Literally nothing?” and King replied back “Literally nothing.. by 3% or more.”
Later, David Plouffe, Harris’ senior campaign advisor would tell the podcast Pod Save America, that she never led in any of their internal polling against Trump.
Then there was the Iowa poll by J. Ana Seltzer where Harris was leading Trump, where Trump won according to AP News, 56.0% and Harris won 42.7% of the votes.
Given everything else, was this poll fake and one-sided? How was it supposed to make the American voters feel?
On Dec. 17. 2024, CNN reported, “Unlike many of Trump’s legal actions against the press, which often allege defamation, this case alleges violations of the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act, which prohibits deception when advertising or selling merchandise.”
In an interview with The New York Times, Nancy Pelosi admitted that the Democrats might have made a crucial error in letting Biden stay in the race as long as they did. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said.
