White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre responds clearly stated that President Biden After last Thursday’s unfortunate debate, he said he was not suffering from Alzheimer’s or any form of dementia.
“Does President Biden, at 81, have Alzheimer’s, some type of dementia or degenerative disease that would cause these types of lapses? And that’s a yes or no question,” a reporter asked Jean-Pierre Tuesday afternoon.
Jean-Pierre responded, referring to former President Trump, “Are you ready for that? The answer is ‘no.’ And I hope you’re asking the other guy the same question.”
Tuesday’s press briefing was the first since Biden’s disastrous debate performance last week, which sparked calls among Democrats and legacy media outlets that the president should drop out of election Due to growing concerns about his age and mental acuity. During the debate, Biden was seen stumbling over his words, at times losing his train of thought, his voice becoming hoarse, and was overall criticized for being slow and weak while competing against Trump.
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White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre speaks during the daily briefing on July 19, 2023. (MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)
Concerns about the president’s mental state have simmered for years, heightened in recent months when special counsel Robert Hur’s report described Biden as “an empathetic, well-intentioned, elderly man with a failing memory.”
Last month, the White House dismissed as “cheap fakes” repeatedly recorded examples of Biden making mistakes or missteps during public events, such as a viral video showing the president standing relatively motionless during a Juneteenth concert event at the White House.
Jean-Pierre reiterated during a White House press briefing that the administration has no regrets about promoting the cheap fakes narrative – even though the debate has sparked widespread concern over the president’s mental acuity, especially among traditional left-wing allies. According to the White House definition, cheap fakes are understood as real videos that are cropped or edited in an allegedly deceptive way.
President Biden during a Juneteenth celebration at the White House. (Fox News/Pool)
When asked by Fox News’ Jackie Heinrich if the administration regretted using the terminology, he replied, “Absolutely not, absolutely not.” “…Independent, mainstream fact-checkers and misinformation experts in the press have been calling out cheap fakes. And at the end of the day, they are fakes. That’s what they were doing – targeting the president. They have said, journalists and these misinformation experts have said, this president is being targeted. And what we did was echo them. That’s what we did. And look, we’ll certainly continue to call out this.”
Jean-Pierre said he did not coin the phrase, but that the administration took it from the media.
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“It came from the media. They called it a cheap lie. And they said this president, President Biden, was being targeted with misinformation. It was being done deliberately to this president. And what we did was we repeated that. So I don’t regret it at all. It was just the facts.”
President Biden looks down as he participates in a debate against former President Trump at CNN’s studios in Atlanta on June 27, 2024. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)
Trump campaign There were calls for an apology for the phrase last week, with some arguing After Biden’s debate When asked about the performance, he said, “Everybody is seeing that there is nothing false about Biden’s fall.”
Caroline Levitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary, told Fox News Digital last week, “Both the Biden White House and the entire Democrat Party are directly involved in the largest coverup in American political history — and the mainstream media is complicit in lying to the American public about Joe Biden’s mental state. They must apologize not only to our campaign, but more importantly to the American people for this massive scandal that has led to the downfall of our country over the last four years.”
Most of the questions asked by Jean-Pierre on Tuesday afternoon revolved around Biden’s mental and physical health, with the press secretary emphasizing that Biden and his allies, such as former President Obama, have said the debate did not go well for the president, but that he is “fighting” for the American people.
“Is There’s someone hiding in the White House One journalist targeted Jean-Pierre, asking, “Do you have any information about the president’s health or his ability to carry out his daily work?”
The press secretary replied, “Absolutely not.”
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Another reporter asked, “Was the President examined by a doctor or had a neurological scan after the debate?”
“A neurological scan? Look, all I can say is, taking a step back, it was a bad night. We understand it was a bad night, and the president has talked about that, and he understands that,” she responded.
Debate between President Biden and former President Trump in Atlanta. (Getty Images)
Jean-Pierre said at the press briefing that the administration has been “transparent” regarding the president’s health history, saying it has released comprehensive medical reports for Biden’s annual checkups.
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The press conference comes on the same day that Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, called on Biden to withdraw from the presidential race. It’s the first time an elected Democratic official has called on the president to withdraw.
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President Biden delivers a speech at a campaign rally held after the debate on June 28, 2024 in Raleigh, North Carolina. (Alison Joyce/Getty Images)
Doggett said, “President Biden is trailing far behind Democratic senators in key states and trailing Donald Trump in most polls. I had hoped the debate would provide some momentum to change that. It did not. Instead of reassuring voters, the president failed to effectively defend his many accomplishments and expose Trump’s many lies.”
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Legacy media outlets such as The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune published opinion pieces calling for Biden to drop out of the race after the debate, while former elected officials and other traditional party allies have made similar comments.
