#WTH What we hear about Biden's decline

This isn't about scoring cheap points

The question of Joe Biden’s age, recently vaulted onto front pages by the devastating Hur report on the President’s retention of classified material, has become a political football. Montages of Biden’s senior moments, his trips on the stairs, his new sturdy sneakers, his bizarre whispering, his frequent confusion etc etc etc have become staples in opposition news dumps. A super majority of Americans believe Biden no longer has the mental chops to do his job.

Well, ok. It seems pointless to deny Biden has lost a step, possibly, indeed, an entire flight of stairs. But we haven’t talked enough about the implications of his loss of cognitive ability. And that’s where we in Washington come in. While Washington insiders have become the scourge of the electorate, there are still things that we see close up that the vast mass of Americans (and foreigners) do not.

DC is a small place, and there are precious few secrets in it. It’s not just full of Americans working for their government in various capacities, and all the hangers on and lobbyists and lawyers and reporters and bankers that are part of the business of this company town. It’s also full of foreigners — ambassadors, their staffs, World Bank and IMF types, various UN straphangers and more. Most of DC’s denizens don’t talk to Biden, ever. But more people talk to and see the POTUS here than anywhere else. And what we see and hear is deeply troubling.

Forget about the mumbling and the icky weird ice cream stuff. Think about managing the White House; dealing with Congress — your own members and the opposition. Think about talking to foreign leaders, going to major international conclaves. Being president is a job. A really, really hard job. And even the most Edith Wilsonesque of wives can’t shield the man from all of his responsibilities. Sure, you can get up late and go to bed early, but even those shorter work hours carry the burdens of the world. Look at Barack Obama before and afters and get a sense of how much it weighs:

What we hear from members of congress is … terrible. Democrats too. Those who talk the president tell of a man who can’t go beyond the words on the page in front of him. He can’t converse on matters of substance. He can deliver talking points, but can’t negotiate with any seriousness. That’s one of the reasons — though far from the only one — why Congress can’t move forward on an emergency supplemental. Republicans are in complete turmoil, but talks with the White House are not helping.

Then there are the foreign leaders. Among themselves — and an open secret in DC’s embassies — they talk about a president who is confused, unsure of the subject matter under discussion, distant, disconnected, and all too often incomprehensible.

This is the man with the nuclear football. The man who commands our armed forces. It doesn’t matter whether you like the Democrats or hate them. The office is critically important, and it is almost vacant.

Please understand, this isn’t about Donald Trump. My friends with whom I discuss (constantly) the 2024 presidential election point out that the race is between two people. That’s right. And Donald Trump is a major problem here. But we’re not talking about November, we’re talking about now.

If foreigners and members of congress and reporters know that the president just isn’t managing, imagine the implications. Xi Jinping knows. Vladimir Putin knows. Ayatollah Khamenei (no spring chicken himself) knows. This puts us in far greater peril than if we had a functioning chief executive.

This isn’t about party, and it isn’t about Trump’s fitness for office. It is about the ongoing crisis we are pretending doesn’t exist in the White House. The right thing for Joe Biden to do is to step down. That he will not, partly because he has always been a stubborn SOB, partly because his mental decline has made him angry and paranoid, is a problem for his family, for his cabinet, and for his party. They must act — for America’s security.

PS If you’re wondering why I’m writing this right now, it’s because in the past week in the course of reckoning how to articulate support for Israel, Taiwan, and Ukraine, and in working on some Gaza-related issues, I have talked to a lot of people. A lot, a lot. And what was once an afterthought — the President’s capacity — has become a central issue. It’s interfering in the running of the country and the management of our foreign policy. It has become an inescapable problem.