by Frank Holmes, reporter
If you want to know where Joe Biden’s presidency is going, the writing is on the wall—or maybe, on the cue cards.
President Biden opened fresh questions about his mental acuity last week, as cameras caught the 79-year-old president reviewing cue cards that look like they were written for a first grader.
Last Thursday, the president was supposed to give detailed remarks on the complicated-sounding “Federal State Offshore Wind Implementation Partnership.” But as he turned over one of his cards to read the talking points on the back, he exposed a cheat sheet on the other side.
The “Sequence of Events” printed on the back, and supposed to be seen by no one but the president, sounds like a Dick and Jane book:
- “YOU enter the Roosevelt Room and say hello to participants.”
- “YOU take YOUR seat.”
- “Press enters.”
- “YOU give brief comment (2 minutes).”
- “Press departs.”
- “YOU ask Liz Shuler, President, AFL-CIO, a question (NOTE: Liz is joining virtually.) “
- “YOU thank participants.”
- “YOU depart.”
Why does Joe Biden need a cue card to walk him through basic events? pic.twitter.com/S3ueAdFNT2
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) June 23, 2022
A lot of Americans who saw the cheat sheet responded by saying: YOU got to be kidding me!
“‘YOU inhale. YOU exhale. YOU inhale. YOU exhale,’” wrote DailyWire.com founder Ben Shapiro.
“They literally have to write out every basic instruction for Joe Biden,” wrote Outkick.com founder and radio talk show host Travis Clay. “Biden has dementia. It’s clear to anyone with a functional brain.”
Even those who didn’t want to go so far as to diagnose the president’s psychological state said the notes did not appear to be written for a functional adult, much less the president.
“Yes, everyone uses notes sometimes. But these notes were something else,” wrote Nick Arama at RedState.com. “They were a list — made up by someone else — that told him what to do, that treated him like a five-year-old child, directing him how to act during an event–even when to sit.”
“This isn’t about a stutter, people. These are instructions to the incoherent,” he wrote.
This isn’t the first time Biden has been caught using a cheat sheet to help jog his memory, but the instructions have gotten progressively worse—showing staffers trust Biden to do less and less every time he’s in public.
Last March, photographers caught Biden leafing through an enormous, fold-out cheat sheet that had the names of reporters, next to their pictures, with the ones he was supposed to call on circled.
Joe Biden had a cheat sheet of all the reporters with numbered circles by the ones he was supposed to call on.#Scripted pic.twitter.com/7jyhJgaH2n
— Brick Suit (@Brick_Suit) March 25, 2021
When Biden visited Louisiana to survey damage from Hurricane Ida six months later, reporters snapped a picture of Biden with another cheat sheet.
This one had the names and faces of local officials—something that’s not that unusual, unless you need them everywhere you go.
President Joe Biden traveled on Friday to Louisiana where he appeared to bring along a "cheat sheet" which featured names and photographs of local officials with certain talking points, according to a report detailing his visit…https://t.co/x5rOiQwai5 pic.twitter.com/tK4fm0zMOD
— Dennis Chighisola (@CoachChic) September 6, 2021
But letting Biden call on reporters, or talk to local officials, proved too dangerous.
This March, Biden accidentally revealed that his staff wrote out a set of “Tough Putin Q&A Talking Points”— super-short, one-sentence answers for the “commander-in-chief” to deflect questions about a major foreign policy gaffe: his statement that Russian President Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power.”
Biden used cheat sheet while doubling down on unscripted message to oust Putin https://t.co/gb4XYFuybB pic.twitter.com/wTIYeyq26Z
— New York Post (@nypost) March 28, 2022
Now, White House staffers don’t even trust the president to read one-sentence answers. The notes tell him how to enter a room, script out every word of his two-minute response, and then tell him how to leave.
Staffers may have told Biden that the president of the AFL-CIO “is joining virtually” so he won’t get confused looking for her—the way he appeared confused in April, when he tried two shake hands with nobody, twice. That was about the same time a staffer dressed as the Easter Bunny had to shoo Biden away from the media by himself.
WATCH: Biden tries to shake hands twice with NOBODY… TWICE. There's no convincing me that he doesn't have dementia. pic.twitter.com/ZvJJK0pwjL
— Tim Young (@TimRunsHisMouth) April 15, 2022
“Can Joe Biden do anything without a cheat sheet?” asked Fox News personality Lisa Boothe last fall.
It turns out lots of Americans are asking the same question. In March, only 23 percent of voters said they strongly believe Biden is mentally stable, while 34 percent strongly believe he’s mentally unfit for office. Things have only gone downhill since then. A majority of registered voters—53 percent—said they question Biden’s mental state, and 62 percent say they think Biden might be too old in a Harvard-Harris poll taken in May.
“It’s abundantly clear he’s not operating on full cylinders. He should be in retirement, not leading a country,” said Booth. “It’s time we start talking about it more. Everyone sees it.”
At least, everyone who has read all the cheat sheets sees it.
Frank Holmes is a veteran journalist and an outspoken conservative that talks about the news that was in his weekly article, “On The Holmes Front.”