Much of the public knows it, many foreign leaders know it, and Democrat insiders know it but dare not say it publicly:
Joe Biden cannot function as president.
And now chief White House doctor to ex-president Barack Obama has essentially said as much, stating that the presumptive Democratic nominee is “just lost.”
The comments by Dr. Ronny Jackson, who joined the White House Medical Unit during the George W. Bush administration and then acted as “physician to the president” for both Obama and Trump, appear in Donald Trump Jr.’s upcoming book, Liberal Privilege: Joe Biden and the Democrats’ Defense of the Indefensible.
“The best way I can describe him every time I see him is that he’s just lost,” the Washington Examiner reported Jackson as saying.
“‘I won’t make any particular diagnosis about dementia…. But what I will say is that something is not right,’ added the retired Navy rear admiral who recently won a House GOP primary in Texas,” the site continued.
“And it is getting so bad that he is ‘not comfortable’ with Biden being commander in chief. ‘I’m not,’ he said of the top Democrat, set to be nominated by the Democratic Party for president on Thursday,” the Examiner also writes.
Jackson isn’t the only one. Joe Concha, the media reporter for the political newspaper The Hill, revealed in June on Fox & Friends that Democrats have repeatedly expressed to him their concerns about Biden’s mental decline.
“A lot of Democrats will tell you, at least privately, that he does not have the mental acuity that he even had a couple of years ago and this is a candidate that simply would not be able to withstand the type of press conferences that the current president has,” Daily Wire related Concha as saying.
“It’s a lot easier … to have, say, a handpicked interview, where you have ground rules for interviews, with certain outlets that may be friendly to your candidate, as opposed to having a press conference, which Mr. Biden has not done for 80 days [as of late June],” the site further related, quoting Concha.
A good example of such a handpicked appearance was Biden’s recent interview with musical smut peddler Cardi B, an ex-stripper who once admitted to drugging and robbing men.
Do note that in such a situation — in which Biden is in a remote, private location — technology can help mask his deficits. For example, he could be fed answers via a teleprompter-like device or some auditory mechanism hidden in his ear. Moreover, to echo Concha, a friendly interviewer may agree in advance on what questions will be asked.
Nonetheless, most of the public isn’t fooled, with a recent Rasmussen poll finding that 59 percent of likely voters, including 49 percent of Democrats, do not believe Biden could complete even one term as president.
Quite striking about this situation is a significant omission from reportage on the top Democrat’s decline: Then-senator Biden had two cranial aneurysms in 1988, requiring two surgeries, and was told by a top neurosurgeon that he had only a 35 to 50 percent chance of emerging from the procedures “completely normal.”
Whatever the cause, though, the decline is plain, as Dr. Jackson pointed out. “Speaking as someone who was in the White House, [I] saw him frequently around the West Wing and other places like that. I know he’s always been prone to gaffes, but these aren’t gaffes anymore,” the Examiner relates the physician as saying, quoting an excerpt from Trump Jr.’s book.
“He can’t form sentences. Sometimes, he can’t complete a thought,” Jackson explained. “I mean, he gets stuck, and he doesn’t know how to get out of the situation that he’s in. And he just finally has to give up.” The following video attests to this.
Many have described the “use” of Biden, an empty shell at this point, as “elder abuse.” And though some may not like this comparison, the situation is somewhat reminiscent of an old Star Trek episode titled “Patterns of Force.” In it, a well-meaning man is propped up as a figurehead leader, in his case kept drugged so he can be used to mindlessly hand down destructive party decrees and disgorge propaganda.
While I do suspect that even a lucid Biden would embrace today’s “woke” ideology for power, commentators such as Fox News’ Tucker Carlson have stated that there’s one thing the diminished Biden offers: He can be easily controlled by the Democratic establishment.
So is Biden as figurehead the plan? American Thinker’s Sally Zelikovsky — who cared for a father with dementia and wrote last week that Biden is “presenting exactly as my father did in the early stages” — suggests an interesting possibility.
“With today’s technology, deep fake videos, and a COVID-inspired virtual presidency, perhaps the DNC is confident they can pull a fast one on the American people, run a shadow government with Joe as the face of the presidency, and cover up his infirmity and ineptitude with the aid of the press — think Woodrow Wilson and FDR,” she theorized.
Perhaps, but I consider this unlikely. Unless there’s some remarkably effective medical intervention, Biden may in a year’s time not even be able to function as figurehead. More likely is that, as I theorized in early March, a Biden victorious in the election would be convinced to resign or be removed via the 25th Amendment. There’s another possibility, too:
If he could be convinced to, or coerced or conned into, resigning after being officially nominated this week, he could be replaced on the ticket. The Democratic National Committee would then choose his replacement, via a meeting of its hundreds of members — and they could select anyone they wished.
So, yes, the candidate could then be Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, or someone else.
What’s for sure is that Joe Biden may win in November, by hook or by crook — but what he cannot do is function as president.
Photo: AP Images
Selwyn Duke (@SelwynDuke) has written for The New American for more than a decade. He has also written for The Hill, Observer, The American Conservative, WorldNetDaily, American Thinker, and many other print and online publications. In addition, he has contributed to college textbooks published by Gale-Cengage Learning, has appeared on television, and is a frequent guest on radio.