President Joe Biden reportedly forgot the details of his own administration’s energy policy in a February meeting with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.).
According to a Wall Street Journal report detailing Biden’s declining performance behind closed doors, the 81-year-old president pulled Johnson aside privately after a February meeting to discuss funding for a Ukraine military aid bill. Johnson mentioned the administration’s pause on approvals for exports of liquefied natural gas, which he argued would cause U.S. allies to become more dependent on Russian energy.
Biden told Johnson that his account of the new policy was incorrect and that the proposed ban was "only a study," causing Johnson to believe Biden had forgotten key details of his own policy.
Other incidents described in the article contain allegations of Biden’s diminished mental acuity.
During May 2023 debt ceiling negotiations, Biden would "ramble" and at times failed to remember points that had already been discussed, according to former House speaker Kevin McCarthy.
"I used to meet with him when he was vice president. I’d go to his house," McCarthy told the Journal. "He’s not the same person."
During another January meeting with top lawmakers on Ukraine aid, Biden reportedly began the meeting by reading from notes, with some present struggling to hear him. He was barely involved in the meeting itself and deferred questions to staffers. "You couldn’t be there and not feel uncomfortable," one attendee said.
Biden has insisted that he is fit for a second term, even as evidence of his cognitive decline continues to mount.
In March, Special Counsel Robert Hur said that prosecuting Biden for mishandling classified documents would have been untenable because Biden would come off as a "well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory."
Voters have consistently expressed concern about Biden’s age. A New York Times poll in March found that 73 percent of voters, including 56 percent of Democrats, believed that Biden was "too old to be an effective president."