US media reveal Democrats’ strategy to “hide” Joe Biden’s signs of fatigue

As more and more voices are raised to demand Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race for the White House, several media outlets claim that his campaign team has developed a real strategy to preserve the American president.

Can Joe Biden stay in the race for the White House? More and more voices are being raised against the candidacy of the outgoing American president, aged 81, even within his own camp. Recently, it was the Democratic senator from Vermont Peter Welch and the actor George Clooney who called on the outgoing president to step down, while the very influential former Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi refused to give him her support.

And for good reason: in recent months, the oldest American president when he came to power has shown signs of fatigue, up until his failed debate on June 27, when he seemed particularly disoriented. To the point that many media outlets are describing a real strategy by Joe Biden’s campaign team to hide these signs from the public.

A prompter for official speeches or fundraising events

The speeches of the head of state, who was once very comfortable in front of the media, sometimes to the point of making gaffes, seem to have been greatly limited by his campaign team. According to the Washington Postwhenever Joe Biden speaks in public, his team has prepared a teleprompter that he can read, whether during an official speech or a fundraising evening with thirty people.

An intervention, without a teleprompter, is also the whole point of Joe Biden’s speech for the 75th anniversary of NATO in Washington, while the White House has promised “a big boy press conference”without specifying what she was referring to.

Real “barriers” between the president and journalists

For his part, the Wall Street Journal published a long article on Monday, July 8, entitled “How Biden’s Inner Circle Worked to Keep Signs of His Aging Secret.” The daily describes “very active management” of Biden’s schedule by his entourage for over a year, to “minimize the signs of the impact of age” on the head of state. The article evokes real “barriers” erected between Joe Biden and journalists during press conferences, “sometimes kept tens, even hundreds of meters from the president”.

According to the Wall Street JournalJoe Biden’s team even plays music at full volume as the president leaves the room, “so that journalists’ questions are not audible”The newspaper also states that the White House twice refused to allow Joe Biden to give an interview at halftime of the Superbowl, the American football championship final.

Controlled movements

But the president’s movements are also very controlled. His fall, at a graduation ceremony at the US Air Force Academy in June 2023, had left a lasting impression. The aim is therefore to prevent such an incident from happening again. In an article published on Sunday, July 7, the news site Axios thus reveals preparatory documents for a trip by Joe Biden for a fundraising evening at a private residence. “They prepared it as if it were a NATO summit”according to an employee of the company that organized the party, who Axios spoke to.

According to the news site, the documents include a map intended to explain to the president how to get to the stage, with photos of the different stages. “I was surprised that a seasoned political professional like the president needed detailed verbal and visual instructions on how to enter and exit a room.”the employee states in particular in the articleAxios. Joe Biden’s team responds that this type of preparatory document is common for a trip by the President of the United States, whose every trip is meticulously marked out.