Timeline: Media, White House defended Biden’s fitness for office until debate debacle made it impossible

President Biden, the White House and their allies in the media have ping-ponged on information related to his mental fitness, going from lashing out at critics of his acuity to spearheading his removal from the 2024 ticket.

People close to Biden insisted he was sharp as a Ginsu and claimed videos suggesting otherwise were “cheap fakes.” They cried foul on a deeply reported story about his behind-the-scenes deadline and called a special counsel report about Biden’s poor memory “gratuitous.” But then much of the legacy media turned on Biden when it appeared he couldn’t defeat former President Trump in November’s election, ultimately resulting in an announcement posted on X that he would step aside. 

Here is a timeline of key moments: 

Questions about Biden’s mental fitness dismissed by White House, press

The White House and Biden’s media allies spent much of his term dismissing concerns about his fitness for office. 

In 2022, one of the more memorable examples came when White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre laughed off a question about Biden’s physical and mental well-being during an interview with CNN. Since-fired host Don Lemon asked, “Does the president have the stamina, physically and mentally, do you think to continue on even after 2024?”

“Don, you’re asking me this question,” a visibly stunned Jean-Pierre exclaimed. “Oh my gosh. He’s the President of the United States.”

The press secretary then laughed and said she sometimes struggles to even keep up with Biden.

“That is not a question that we should be even asking,” she added. “Just look at the work he does. And look how he’s delivering for the American public.”

After several gaffes in 2023 – including Biden falling at the Air Force Academy commencement ceremony in June, referring to the Grand Canyon as one of the “nine” wonders of the world in August and claiming he was at Ground Zero the day after 9/11 in September despite records showing he was in Washington, D.C., that day – Vice President Kamala Harris was asked about whether the president’s age is a concern.

“I would say that age is more than a chronological fact,” Harris said in an interview for the New York Times’ Dealbook Summit in November 2023, adding that he is “absolutely authoritative” during his meetings.

BIDEN LASHES OUT AT REPORTERS ASKING ABOUT AGE CONCERNS AFTER SPECIAL COUNSEL REPORT: ‘THAT IS YOUR JUDGMENT!’

Media, White House fume over Hur report

The media largely seethed in February after the release of Special Counsel Robert Hur’s damning report on President Biden’s handling of classified documents that described him as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” 

 The New York Times went with the “Republicans pounce” framing when covering Biden’s reported memory issues, Jeffrey Toobin returned to CNN to insist Hur made “unnecessary points” about Biden’s advanced age, and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow gushed that everything is fine because Biden still “rides a bike.” 

Hours after the damning report, Biden held a last-minute White House press conference and remained defiant — becoming clearly agitated when he faced questions about his age and memory. He declared his memory was “fine,” Biden proceeded to refer to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi as the “president of Mexico.” Biden then went off script and took questions from reporters at random, prompting a combative exchange with CNN correspondent MJ Lee, who asked about Americans who are concerned about his age. 

Vice President Harris later attacked Hur’s report as “politically motivated” and “gratuitous, inaccurate and inappropriate,” and the word “gratuitous” caught on as a liberal media talking point.

While many high-profile liberals fumed at Hur, others began to realize Biden might not be fit to serve another term. Shortly afterward, Axios reported that Biden’s reliance on his notes to give detailed answers at private fundraisers left some donors worried about his viability. 

Wall Street Journal report irks the left

The Wall Street Journal published a June bombshell, “Behind Closed Doors, Biden Shows Signs of Slipping,” that detailed “interviews with more than 45 people over several months” who felt the president had lost a step or two.

The damning report, published less than two months before Biden decided not to seek re-election, was promptly dismissed by much of the mainstream press. Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi, who later helped lead the behind-the-scenes charge to take Biden off the ticket, lashed out at the story. MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” declared the report a “Trump hit piece on Biden,” and left-wing media watchdog group Media Matters called the report “comically weak.”

CNN’s Oliver Darcy, the media scribe who often runs enthusiastic defense for Democrats and liberal press outlets, declared the “story questioned Biden’s mental acuity, playing into a GOP-propelled narrative that the 81-year-old president lacks the fitness to hold the nation’s highest office.”

“Republicans accusing their political foe of lacking the mental fitness to hold office is nothing surprising,” Darcy wrote, claiming that former President Trump could also be accused of slipping in the mental fitness department. 

Darcy, who previously wrote that Robert Hur’s depiction of Biden’s mental state “didn’t match reality” based on reports, insisted the Journal’s report “suffers from glaring problems,” lecturing the paper it “owes its readers — and the public — better.”

The White House issued a statement condemning the report, saying it was filled with “false claims.”  

White House pushes ‘cheap fake’ claim

Later in June, White House officials insisted a series of videos that appeared to show Biden in declining mental acuity were actually “cheap fake smears” pushed by bad actors. Biden has been plagued with videos from various events that appear to show him “confused.” 

One video showed him turning away from the group of world leaders at a D-Day anniversary event in France to speak to a parachuter. Another video appeared to show him being uncertain of when it was time to sit down, and another video showed him famously being led off the stage by former President Obama at a fundraising event. According to the White House, it was all just bad-faith efforts to discredit Biden. 

“The discredited right-wing critics of President Biden who spread other debunked lies, including that the 2020 election was stolen, are clearly threatened by the wide range of nonpartisan fact-checkers that have pulled back the curtain on the cheap fake smears they’re forced to rely on – since the last thing they want to discuss is Joe Biden’s agenda to cut taxes for working families and keep bringing violent crime to historic lows,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates told Fox News Digital at the time. 

“Their panicked reaction to mainstream reporters, including at The Washington Post, NBC News and PolitiFact, citing misinformation experts taking anti-Biden cheap fakes apart says more than we ever could,” Bates added.

Media does about-face after debate debacle 

President Biden’s mental acuity was on the world stage during his disastrous performance at the infamous presidential debate. He appeared confused, pale, repeatedly struggled to articulate his message and lost his train of thought mid-sentence on multiple occasions. 

The debate forced Biden’s media allies to turn on him, and everyone from pundits on CNN and MSNBC to the New York Times’ editorial board called for him to step aside. 

Biden and the White House insist it was just a ‘bad night’ 

Biden and his allies blamed the debate disaster on having a cold, jet lag, being tired and even that he was distracted by Trump speaking into a muted microphone. They ultimately landed on a “bad night” as the talking point to justify the debacle. 

Actor George Clooney even called on Biden to leave the 2024 race, citing what he witnessed at a Hollywood fundraiser in late June where the president was criticized for seemingly needing to be led off the stage by former President Obama. 

Immediately following the June 18 fundraiser where videos circulated of Biden being led off the stage by Obama, the Democratic Party along with the media launched a coordinated effort to chalk the moment up as a “cheap fake.”

The debate changed everything, and weeks after CNN’s in-house media reporter criticized the Wall Street Journal, the network aired a montage of Biden appearing “not coherent.” 

WHITE HOUSE ‘CHEAP FAKE’ NARRATIVE CRUMBLES AFTER CLOONEY EXPOSES BIDEN’S CONDITION AT HOLLYWOOD FUNDRAISER

Biden says he’d step aside if a ‘medical condition’ emerged and gets COVID hours later

The White House released an announcement that Biden tested positive for COVID, noting that the president had been vaccinated and boosted and was “experiencing mild symptoms.” 

The COVID news came after Biden said that a medical diagnosis from a doctor would likely sway him to reconsider running for a second term. 

“If I had some medical condition that emerged,” Biden said, when asked in a BET interview this month if there was a reason that would make him reconsider running in 2024. “If doctors came to me and said, ‘You got this problem, that problem.’”

Biden drops out, media praises him as ‘patriot’

Following weeks of adamant declarations from Biden and his campaign that he was staying in the race, the president dropped out on Sunday afternoon, and shortly after endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president. 

The press that spent weeks calling for him to step aside in the wake of the debate suddenly showered him with praise. Late-night host Stephen Colbert enthused he was a “great president.” CNN’s Van Jones nearly became emotional on the air. And the excitement of liberal media figures on the air over Harris’ ascendance was impossible to deny. 

“What a man, what a patriot. What an act of selfless devotion to your country,” MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow said, setting the tone for how liberal pundits would react. 

Darcy, who previously scolded the media after the debate for being too tough on Biden’s mental fitness issues, gushed in his sycophantic newsletter on Monday that the media pressure campaign to push him off the 2024 ticket demonstrated its integrity and independence.

“CNN anti-speech activist Oliver Darcy writes that the media helping out top Democrats such as Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi with their coup of Biden (who they feared would cause widespread losses in November) shows that media are not in the pocket of … Democrats. Yes, really,” wrote Fox News contributor Mollie Hemingway.

White House, family offer conflicting accounts if Biden’s health influenced decision 

As Biden was self-isolating in his home Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, his brother, Frank Biden, said that the president’s health “absolutely” played a role in his decision not to seek re-election just weeks ahead of the Democratic National Convention. 

Following Frank Biden’s comment, a source close to the Biden family told CBS that the president’s brother is an alcoholic, and his claims were “completely untrue.” 

White House spokesman Andrew Bates told Fox News Digital when asked about the president’s health that it did not play a role in his decision to drop out of the race. 

“No. Health was not a factor,” Bates said Monday morning. 

Biden set for Oval Office address 

Biden is expected to address the nation from the Oval Office on Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET, and Americans hope he clears up much of the confusion swirling around his decision to step aside. 

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Fox News Digital’s Joseph A. Wulfsohn, Andrew Mark Miller, Aubrie Spady, Jamie Joseph, Lawrence Richard and Emma Colton contributed to this report.