White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre responded directly to questions about President Biden’s mental fitness in the aftermath of last Thursday’s debate, stating that the President does not suffer from Alzheimer’s or any form of dementia.
“Does President Biden, at 81 years old, have Alzheimer’s, any form of dementia, or a degenerative illness that causes these sorts of lapses? And it’s a yes or no question,” a reporter asked Jean-Pierre on Tuesday afternoon.
“Are you ready for it? It’s a no. And I hope you’re asking the other guy the same exact question,” Jean-Pierre replied, referring to former President Trump.
This was the first press briefing since Biden’s debate performance, which led to calls from some Democrats and media outlets for him to drop out of the election due to concerns over his age and mental acuity. Biden was criticized for stumbling over his words, losing his train of thought, and appearing generally slow and weak during the debate against Trump.
Concerns about the president’s mental fitness have been circulating for years and were amplified recently after Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report described Biden as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
Last month, the White House dismissed several instances of Biden’s public gaffes as “cheap fakes,” including a viral video showing the president standing relatively motionless during a Juneteenth concert at the White House.
Jean-Pierre reiterated during the briefing that the administration does not regret promoting the “cheap fake” narrative, despite the widespread concern over Biden’s mental acuity after the debate, particularly among traditional left-wing allies. “Cheap fakes,” as defined by the White House, are real videos that are cropped or edited in a misleading manner.
“Not at all, not at all,” she answered when Fox News’ Jacqui Heinrich asked if the administration regretted using the terminology. “Independent, mainstream fact-checkers in the press and misinformation experts have been calling out cheap fakes. And at the end of the day, they’re fakes. That’s what they were—targeting the president. They have said, the reporters and these misinformation experts, said that this president was being targeted. And what we did was echo them. That’s what we did. And look, we’ll certainly continue to call that out.”
Jean-Pierre emphasized that the term “cheap fakes” originated from the media and that the administration merely echoed their sentiment. “That came from the media. They called it cheap fakes. And they said this president, President Biden, was being targeted on misinformation. It was purposefully being done to this president. And what we did is we echoed that. So, I don’t regret it at all. It was just the facts.”
The Trump campaign demanded an apology for the use of the phrase last week, arguing that Biden’s debate performance revealed his decline as genuine.
“The Biden White House and entire Democrat Party are both directly implicated in the greatest cover-up in U.S. political history—and the mainstream media is complicit in their lies to the American public about Joe Biden’s mental state,” Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News Digital last week. “They owe an apology to not just our campaign, but more importantly to the American people, for this major scandal that has led to the demise of our country over the past four years.”
During Tuesday’s briefing, Jean-Pierre addressed numerous questions about Biden’s mental and physical health, emphasizing that Biden and his allies, including former President Obama, acknowledged the debate did not go well for the president but insisted he is “fighting” for the American people.
“Is anyone in the White House hiding information about the president’s health or his ability to do the job day to day?” one reporter asked Jean-Pierre.
“Absolutely not,” she responded.
“After the debate, did the president get examined by a doctor, or did he get a neurological scan?” another reporter inquired.
“A neurological scan? Look, what I can say is that, just to take a step back, it was a bad night. We understand that it was a bad night, and the president has spoken to this, and he understands that,” she replied.
Jean-Pierre maintained that the administration has been “transparent” about the president’s health history, noting they have released comprehensive medical reports for Biden’s annual checkups.
The press conference coincided with Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, calling on Biden to withdraw from the presidential race, marking the first instance of an elected Democrat official making such a call.
“President Biden has continued to run substantially behind Democratic senators in key states and in most polls has trailed Donald Trump. I had hoped that 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,” Doggett stated.
Prominent media outlets, including the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune, have published opinion pieces urging Biden to bow out of the race following the debate. Former elected officials and other traditional allies of the party have echoed similar sentiments.