OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
A college basketball star revealed this week stunning new details about his brief interaction with President Joe Biden at the White House earlier this year that will likely provide new doubts about his ability to serve another four-year term.
Donovan Clingan, a star 7’2″ center for the University of Connecticut’s back-to-back championship teams, revealed on Caleb Feemster’s podcast that Biden seemed acutely out of it when he and the team visited, going on to suggest that Biden seemed to have forgotten what was taking place several times.
“Last year, after we won our national championship we went to the White House and took a picture with Joe Biden, team picture,” Clingan said. “Joe Biden talked to us for about three minutes.”
When asked what advice Biden gave the players, Clingan said he “completely ignored” coach Dan Hurley.
“We really couldn’t understand what he was saying,” he admitted. “And then he was like, ‘All right, let’s grab a picture.’”
When he was asked what Biden’s understanding of basketball in general was, Clingan said, “Not much.”
WATCH:
According to a new NBC News poll released in February, nearly 9 in 10 respondents, or 89 percent, have some concerns about Biden’s mental status.
“The poll published … ahead of Biden’s press conference … where he was grilled about his age and mental acuity — found that 62 percent of registered voters nationally have ‘major concerns’ that he does not have ‘the necessary mental and physical health to be president for a second term.’ Another 14 percent have ‘moderate’ worries, while 13 percent expressed ‘minor concerns,’” Breitbart News reported, citing the results.
By comparison, just over 1 in 10 said they had “no concerns” about Biden’s mental state.
The fallout from Special Counsel Robert Hur’s damning report regarding Biden’s mishandling of classified information continued this week after he released his findings, and much of it has to do not with Biden’s documents but with his declined mental state.
Hur’s 388-page report, which took the White House by surprise and sent shockwaves through the administration, documented Biden’s memory loss dating back nearly a decade, which clearly puts him in 25th Amendment territory.
“Mr. Biden will likely present himself to the jury, as he did during his interview with our office, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” Hur wrote in explaining his rationale for refusing prosecution. “…It would be difficult to convince a jury they should convict him – by then a former president who will be at least well into his eighties – of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.”
“Our investigation uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen,” the report said, adding that Biden also could not recall the years he served as vice president or the year his son, Beau, died of brain cancer.
Per the Washington Examiner, here is a list of references that Hur made regarding Biden’s declining mental capacity and memory; they touch on Biden’s past positions and the president’s work with a ghostwriter, Mark Zwonitzer, for his 2017 memoir, “Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose”:
— “Mr. Biden’s memory was significantly limited, both during his recorded interviews with the ghostwriter in 2017, and in his interview with our office in 2023.”
— “We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
— “It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him — by then a former president well into his eighties — of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfullness.”