Critics said President Joe Biden’s Thursday press conference was the “worst possible outcome” for Democrats, mainly those who are hoping that the president will not seek re-election.
“This is gonna end in the worst possible place for Democrats. Several verbal gaffes. Does nothing to quell nerves. Yet nothing sufficient enough for Democrats to break out the political long needle on his candidacy tonight,” Ruthless podcast host Josh Holmes said.
“So far this is a very similar Goldilocks performance to Biden’s ABC News interview: not bad enough to open the floodgates, but not good enough to silence the critics. A frustrating spot for Dems,” National Journal Hotline editor Kirk A. Bado said.
“Trump, RNC benefit, while Democrats waiting to release statements hardest hit,” The Spectator editor-at-large Ben Domenech added on X, former known as Twitter.
“This presser going to be a Rorschach test that doesn’t lead to definitive action on its own,” said Kyle Saunders, political science professor at Colorado State University. “The problem is that this isn’t fatality bad, it’s just not that good either. Right in that no win zone. Exactly what the Ds did not need.”
On Friday morning, South Carolina Democrat Rep. Jim Clyburn admitted to NBC that Biden is not the same person that he was two years ago.
“You’re traveling with him next week, you’ve spent more time with the president than just about anybody else in the House, is this the same Joe Biden that we saw two years ago?” interviewer Craig Melvin asked Clyburn, who had endorsed Biden in the 2020 presidential race.
“Well, look, I grew up in…” Clyburn started to say before he was asked again “Is it the same Joe Biden?”
“No,” Clyburn said emphatically, adding that “I’m not the same Jim Clyburn that I was four years ago.”
Clyburn later stated that he doesn’t believe Biden is in the same physical condition as he was in the last presidential election cycle.
“Mentally, I do think so,” Clyburn declared. “He is still grasping what this country is all about.”
“He has one of the best minds that I have ever been around,” Clyburn also said about Biden. “I would hope that we will focus on the substance of this man, rather than these sometimes, misspoken words and phrases, and how he has run this country.”
WATCH:
Rep. Jim Clyburn on Pres. Biden’s press conference:
“He has one of the best minds that I’ve ever been around … and so I would hope that we would focus on the substance of this man, rather than these sometimes misspoken words and phrases, and how he has run this country.” pic.twitter.com/vGXuOWYStr
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) July 12, 2024
CNN’s chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta has called on President Joe Biden to take a cognitive exam to prove he is capable of doing the job.
“For me as a brain specialist, it was concerning to watch President Joe Biden, and it quickly became clear that I was not alone in my reaction,” the practicing neurosurgeon said in an opinion piece for CNN.
“Over the past week, I received more than a dozen calls, texts, and emails from medical colleagues who, like me, specialize in the brain. It wasn’t that what we noticed was necessarily new but that it was particularly pronounced, right from the start of the debate,” he said.
“From a neurological standpoint, we were concerned with his confused rambling; sudden loss of concentration in the middle of a sentence; halting speech, and absence of facial animation, resulting at times in a flat, open-mouthed expression. To be clear, these are only observations, not in any way diagnostic of something deeper, and none of these doctors wished to suggest that was the case,” he said.
“The consensus from the doctors reaching out to me, however, was that the president should be encouraged to undergo detailed cognitive and movement disorder testing, and those results should be made available to the public,” the doctor said.
“Over the past five years, I have reported extensively on the advances in the world of treating and reducing risk of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, Lewy body dementia and vascular dementia. For the documentary “The Last Alzheimer’s Patient,” I even went through extensive cognitive testing to demonstrate what it entailed and determine whether I had problems with executive functioning, judgment or memory lapses, as well as blood tests to determine things like the level of abnormal proteins that may be present in my brain and my B12 levels. My sense of smell and my genetic risk factors were checked. This type of testing is not necessary for most people as a matter of routine, but every one of the brain doctors I spoke to recommended that level of examination for Biden,” he said.
The president completed his most recent physical exam in February where the White House said that a team of 20 doctors, including a neurologist, was involved and declared him to be “fit for duty.”
This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
