Legendary journalist Carl Bernstein said an anonymous source “very close” to Biden has allegedly witnessed the president’s mental breakdown, which was revealed to the public last week, “15 to 20 times” over the past year and a half.
Bernstein, who is credited with exposing the Watergate scandal with Bob Woodward in the 1970s that led to the impeachment of President Richard Nixon, CNNAnderson Cooper said Monday that sources close to the aging commander in chief were well aware of “the horror show we witnessed” during Biden’s disastrous debate with former President Trump.
“Several of these people are very close to President Biden, they love him and they’ve supported him, and some of them have raised a lot of money for him,” Bernstein said.
“They contend that what we saw of Joe Biden the other night was not a one-off, but that there have been 15 or 20 times over the last year and a half where the president has presented a similar appearance to that horrific show we just witnessed.”
Mr Bernstein, 80, said what made this “significant” was that “so many people around the president are aware of these events, including reporters who happened to see some of them”.
“But tonight, as people say, we’re seeing ‘President Biden at his best,'” the veteran journalist said, referring to Biden’s White House speech on Monday in which he criticized the Supreme Court’s immunity rulings in Trump’s legal cases.
“But those who support him, love him and campaign for him have often said that he has been experiencing significant cognitive decline and physical decline, particularly over the last six months.”
The 81-year-old president’s performance in Thursday night’s debate sent panic throughout the Democratic Party.
Bernstein claimed sources had told him he had warned Biden’s former chief of staff, Ron Klain, who helped prepare the president for the Camp David debate, over the past year that “there was a problem.”
“There’s a problem, as we saw the other night, where we have numerous instances where the president loses his train of thought and can’t get it back,” Bernstein said.
A former Washington Post reporter said sources told him Biden appeared “extremely” stiff after speaking at a fundraiser, “as if in rigor mortis.”
“This was just a year ago at the old Four Seasons restaurant on Park Avenue. He got so stiff that they had to bring in a chair to play the second half of the event,” Bernstein told Cooper.
“I think what these people are saying, and have been saying for a while, is, ‘Yes, he’s been great as we’ve seen tonight. But he’s also had some puzzling moments that we’re very concerned about. Ron Klain, and the First Family, we need to have a conversation about this.'”
Bernstein argued that his sources had been “repeatedly deferred every time the subject came up.”
