President Joe Biden has "classic features of neurodegeneration" and all the "hallmarks of Parkinson’s," neurosurgeon and longtime Democrat Thomas Pitts told NBC Monday.
"This guy [Biden] is not a hard case … I could have diagnosed him from across the Mall," Pitts told NBC’s Tom Llamas. "If a med student did not pick Parkinson’s on the test, they’d be remediated."
Biden’s mental health has been under public scrutiny since his dismal debate performance last month, during which he continually lost his train of thought, mixed up words, and had a confused gaze throughout the 90-minute event.
Pitts explained that the octogenarian president has the telltale mental and mobility signs of Parkinson’s, not just a "speech discrepancy," refuting Llama’s claim that Biden has "word finding difficulties" because he has "overcome stuttering."
Common Parkinson’s symptoms, according to Pitts, include slow and small movements, a monotone voice, small, pivoting steps, rigidity, and loss of arm swinging while walking.
The White House has taken unprecedented measures to hide the president’s dwindling mental state for over a year, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday. Biden’s advisers have limited his daily schedule and public appearances, which have mainly been scripted.
Pitts, a lifelong Democrat, said he was frustrated with the Biden administration’s coverup of the president’s mental health and compared it to "outrageous" coverup situations in the Soviet Union and North Korea.
"I'm an American before everything," Pitt said. "My own party had four years … to find one person … to replace a guy who has a neurodegenerative disease."
Several recent reports show that Parkinson’s expert and neurologist Kevin Cannard visited the executive mansion eight times in the last eight months and has met with Kevin O’Connor, the president’s physician. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, grilled by reporters Monday afternoon, refused to say for "privacy reasons" if Cannard came to the White House for the 81-year-old president.
"There are thousands of military personnel who come on to this White House, many of them get the care from the White House Medical Unit. And so we need to be super careful," the press secretary said.
After the briefing, O’Connor released a letter hoping to clear up Cannard’s visits to the White House and reassure the public of Biden’s mental state.
"Seeing patients at the White House is something that Dr. Cannard has been doing for a dozen years," O’Connor said. He added that Cannard is the neurologist who sees Biden during his annual physicals and that the president "has not seen a neurologist outside of his annual physical."