President Joe Biden’s daily schedule reportedly consists of limited work hours and lots of personal time, as concerns about the 80-year-old president’s ability to serve a second term rise within his party.
The "vast majority" of events Biden participates in are between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., and it's difficult to schedule events with him in the morning, night, or on the weekend, White House officials told Axios.
Some of the president's advisers confessed that Biden, the oldest president in history, is slowing down in energy. So far this year, he’s held just four public events before 10 a.m. and a dozen after 6 p.m. Biden has also logged 12 full weekends without a single public event.
White House deputy chief of staff Jen O'Malley Dillon responded with a one-word reply to Axios’s report: "False."
The report comes a month after former press secretary Jen Psaki admitted on MSNBC that "President Biden does nothing at 9 a.m." She noted his March 13 remarks on the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, which occurred at 9:15 a.m., showed "how vital the White House recognizes that it is."
Concerns about the president's age were further fueled this week when Biden was caught using a cheat sheet with advance reporter questions Wednesday at a press conference with South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol. Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said it is "entirely normal" to "anticipate questions" for a press conference.
"It is entirely normal for a president to be briefed on reporters who will be asking questions at a press conference and issues that we expect they might ask about," she said.
"It is not surprising that we would anticipate questions that he did receive," Jean-Pierre said. The cheat sheet showed Los Angeles Times reporter Courtney Subramanian’s face, name, and a question, which the paper denied having sent in advance. Biden called on the reporter first, and her question was essentially the same as the one on the card.
Some in Biden’s party are questioning his ability to do his job competently. The Washington Post in recent weeks interviewed Democratic voters who said the president's frequent verbal slip-ups and physical stumbles are giving them pause about whether he should run for a second term.
Biden faces the lowest support from within his own party for a second term among modern presidents. Just 38 percent of Democrats said the party should nominate Biden for reelection, compared with 57 percent who want to find another plausible candidate, according to an average of polls conducted throughout his first term published by the Post on Monday. Former president Donald Trump had 70 percent of the Republican Party's support for a reelection bid.