Joe Biden in the first presidential debate in Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday, June 27, 2024.
[Editor's note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]
By Tony Kinnett
The Daily Signal
Republican members of the House and Senate foreign affairs committees have expressed alarm over President Joe Biden’s apparent declining mental health amid a growing terror threat both in the United States and abroad.
House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, told The Daily Signal, “In last week’s debate, the president sent a dangerous message of incompetence that will further embolden our adversaries. The world is already on fire and his debate performance only made it worse.”
“The first presidential debate evidenced what I have been saying for months—that President Biden is no longer mentally fit for office. And this puts America at great risk,” Rep. Nathaniel Moran, R-Texas, told The Daily Signal.
U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas
The Daily Signal sought comment from both Republican and Democrat members of the House and Senate foreign affairs committees concerning the president’s health and national security, but only Republicans responded.
Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., told The Daily Signal that he is “deeply concerned that the commander in chief is mentally unfit to do the job.”
Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas., questioned how Biden could be “responsible for the nuclear codes yet oblivious to everything around him” in a statement to The Daily Signal.
“Joe Biden’s cognitive state is one of the biggest threats to our national security currently—especially after our allies and adversaries saw his true, feeble state on full display at the debate,” Jackson said. “Our country is in disarray under the ‘leadership’ of a weak Commander-in-Chief, who is the one responsible for the nuclear codes yet oblivious to everything around him.”
Moran also said Biden’s “weak and feckless” foreign policy decisions have prompted a “new Axis of Totalitarianism” of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.
“Not only is President Biden weak, but now it is clear to the world that he also lacks the mental capacity to analyze complex information and make timely decisions critical to our national security,” the Texas Republican added.
On Thursday, Biden and Trump faced off in the first presidential debate in the 2024 election cycle, hosted by CNN at the network’s private television studio in Atlanta. Biden’s performance drew a bipartisan cacophony of fear, concern, and scorn, which immediately flooded social media, network television, newspapers, and radio.
While some liberal pundits had voiced their concerns over Biden’s mental decline evident in fundraisers and international events, many legacy media outlets and Biden administration officials published opinions and “fact checks” claiming that unflattering footage of the president was “misleading,” “edited,” or “cheap fakes.”
After Thursday’s debate, some major newspapers’ editorial boards and columnists began questioning Biden’s ability to stay in the race or remain in office at all.
Axios reported after the debate that, “From 10am to 4pm, Biden is dependably engaged—and many of his public events in front of cameras are held within those hours.” Biden aides added that the president is “more likely to have verbal miscues and become fatigued” at other times. These aides revealed what many Americans had suspected for years—that the president was only coherent during short windows throughout the day, neglecting evening events.
On his show “Verdict,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, decried these revelations as “terrifying.”
The White House spin was, ‘Joe Biden is usually lucid between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., and so we’ve just learned to do any White House meetings during those hours because that’s when his brain operates.’ You think about that as their explanation…Maybe [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and [Chinese leader] Xi [Jinping] before launching a military attack, maybe a terrorist before murdering Americans, they’ll be sure to do it between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Because you know, if you do it after the Jello at the cafeteria, I’m afraid the commander in chief is just not there and not able to handle it. That is a terrifying statement from the White House.
This has prompted new concerns from members of the House and Senate foreign affairs committees—questioning whether the president is able to provide leadership to the free world in the middle of several crises in Africa, Europe, the Middle East, the Pacific, and Central and South America.
Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., warned in a post-debate interview on Fox News that “our adversaries watched that debate, and they were smiling. Our allies watched that debate, and they were trembling.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed that the president was “fine” in a press conference on Friday, suggesting that Biden’s performance was diminished by a cold and sore throat.
While none of the Democrat members of the House or Senate foreign affairs committees have yet called for Biden to reconsider running for reelection or resigning from office, Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, of the House Ways and Means Committee and the House Budget Committee called for Biden to drop out of the 2024 race Tuesday morning.
[Editor's note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]
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