‘Not The Same Joe Biden’: White House Stenographer Says Former VP’s ‘Mental Acuity’ Has Deteriorated
Joe Biden’s former White House stenographer said the vice president’s public speaking ability has deteriorated significantly since leaving office to the point where he’s "not the same Joe Biden."
"It is a complete difference from what he was in 2017," Mike McCormick, who worked as a White House stenographer for 15 years and with Biden from 2011 to 2017, told the Washington Free Beacon in an interview. "He’s lost a step and he doesn’t seem to have the same mental acuity as he did four years ago."
In recent interviews, Biden seems to have been reading directly from a teleprompter when answering questions, including instructions from his staff, such as "END QUOTE" and "TOPLINE MESSAGE."
He has also made odd statements, telling one online audience that when he was a patient at Walter Reed Hospital, the nurses would "breathe in my nostrils to make me move."
President Trump has nicknamed him "Sleepy Joe," and the Trump campaign released a video ad last month suggesting that he is suffering from cognitive decline.
While McCormick says Biden was a more articulate speaker in the White House, his tendency to ramble sometimes caused him problems with foreign adversaries.
During Biden’s first visit with then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in March 2011, McCormick said the former KGB leader "publicly humiliated" the vice president by cutting off his microphone during their press conference—an incident that McCormick said never made it into media coverage of the trip.
Joe Biden’s former White House stenographer said the vice president’s public speaking ability has deteriorated significantly since leaving office to the point where he’s “not the same Joe Biden.”
freebeacon.com