Is Joe Biden Mentally Unfit to Be President? - Americans face a stark choice going into the 2024 election.

President Joe Biden’s apparent mental decline, in my opinion, can no longer be ignored with the publication of Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report. Democrats know it.

Obama White House strategist David Axelrod noted on Thursday evening that Biden’s mental fitness will be “a stubborn problem for the campaign going forward.” It’s not just Republicans saying it. Hillary Clinton also told MSNBC Biden’s age was a “legitimate” issue.

Fox News reported in December 2021 that text messages dating from 2019 between Hunter Biden and his former psychiatrist Dr. Keith Ablow show they joked about the elder Biden’s apparent dementia.

Ablow, a former Fox News analyst, suggested following the 2012 Vice Presidential Debate between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan that the then-vice president displayed signs of dementia.

Joe Biden's Problem

Stories such as this can be discounted as out-of-context and partisan. However, the nonpartisan Special Counsel’s report raises the question as to what business a man he describes as mentally impaired has running the country.

Hur’s report notes that then-former Vice President Joe Biden’s mental faculties were seriously limited even in 2017, just after he left office. Hur’s report suggests that the president knowingly retained classified notebooks containing sensitive information from discussions between himself as vice president and former President Barack Obama. Biden informed his ghostwriter that the entries were presumptively classified and read them verbatim to the ghostwriter.

Biden knew he could not hold onto the notebooks after leaving office, and he kept them in unlocked drawers in his home despite knowing that they needed to be kept in a protected facility known as Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF).   

“Mr. Biden's memory was significantly limited, both during his recorded interviews with the ghostwriter in 2017, and in his interview with our office in 2023. And his cooperation with our investigation, including by reporting to the government that the Afghanistan documents were in his Delaware garage, will likely convince some jurors that he made an innocent mistake, rather than acting willfully-that is, with intent to break the law-as the statute requires,” Hur’s report states.

The report continues: “It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him-by then a former president well into his eighties-of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.”

The revelations are likely to increase calls for Biden to step aside as the Democratic nominee and for someone like former First Lady Michelle Obama to take his place, but replacing Biden will be nearly impossible.  

Sixty-two percent of Americans told a NBC News poll last week that they had concerns about Biden’s mental fitness.

Biden vehemently denied that he has serious memory issues during his press conference last Thursday in a heated exchange with reporters. He also denied sharing classified documents with his ghostwriter, saying that Hur had misconstrued his words. The president then claimed that Abdel Fatah al-Sisi was the president of Mexico, not Egypt, again raising questions about his memory.

It is clear that Biden likely broke the law, but Hur opted against prosecuting Biden due to the president’s lack of mental competency.

Up Close and Personal 

Those who have encountered President Joe Biden one-on-one have said that he has a short attention span and often seems to be distracted in private. A national security professional who spoke with this writer on the condition of anonymity, who met with Biden in the White House, noted that Biden’s staff members appear to be the ones in charge instead of the president himself.

If the president is not fit to stand trial after leaving office for the clear criminal act of retaining classified information, then how is he fit to make life or death decisions as one of the most powerful individuals in the world? Republicans are asking this question.

“Biden can’t withstand the intellectual rigor of a trial because he’s an ‘elderly man with a poor memory’ but he’s OK to be the commander in chief with the world on fire?” Republican Florida Congressman Mike Waltz wrote on X.

Looking at the Science 

The Alzheimer’s Association notes early dementia symptoms can include “poor judgement,” confusing words, confusing times and places, challenges in solving problems, and memory loss among others. This writer has experience with a family member who has suffered from this awful illness. It only gets worse as a person ages.

Most dementia victims begin to experience things such as forgetting to pay bills and losing car keys. When that person happens to be President of the United States stakes are higher. Impaired dementia-influenced decisions can even lead to war.

Since becoming president, Biden has made judgment calls that have emboldened China, Russia, and Iran. Were they influenced by dementia or by a dementia-weakened president who is pushed around by unelected bureaucrats?

Biden once had an energetic, jovial personality as footage from 15-20 years ago shows. Today, he looks tired and aloof. America’s adversaries no doubt see this too and are taking advantage of the look of weakness. This weakness would have been apparent to the former KGB man Vladimir Putin during their meetings; consequently, he went in for the kill with the invasion of Ukraine.

His appeasement of Iran led to the situation the Middle East now finds itself in. Biden’s failure to deliver clear messaging to China leaves Taiwan and the South China Sea wide open.

Biden should step aside for the sake of the country, but his pride will not let him. He would be 86 years old at the end of a second term. Recent experience with late California Sen. Dianne Feinstein offers a glimpse into a potential future: A man with diminishing mental faculties and touch with reality due to the progression of aging, if indications are correct.

Americans need a full-time president, not one who is potentially incapacitated and manipulated by unelected officals. 

About the Author 

John Rossomando is a defense and counterterrorism analyst and served as Senior Analyst for Counterterrorism at The Investigative Project on Terrorism for eight years. His work has been featured in numerous publications such as The American Thinker, The National Interest, National Review Online, Daily Wire, Red Alert Politics, CNSNews.com, The Daily Caller, Human Events, Newsmax, The American Spectator, TownHall.com, and Crisis Magazine. He also served as senior managing editor of The Bulletin, a 100,000-circulation daily newspaper in Philadelphia, and received the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors first-place award for his reporting.