WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) – President Joe Biden appeared to flub his past and present job titles in recent comments, renewing long-simmering doubts as to the 79-year-old commander-in-chief’s mental acuity.
Former President Barack Obama joined Biden at the White House on Tuesday to commemorate the 12th anniversary of the so-called Affordable Care Act, the set of controversial federal health insurance regulations better known as ObamaCare.
“My name is Joe Biden. I’m Barack Obama’s vice president,” Biden declared to laughs and cheers from the crowd, referencing the position he held from January 2009 to January 2017.
Biden: "My name is Joe Biden. I'm Barack Obama's Vice President." pic.twitter.com/DmH9dkpcv7
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) April 5, 2022
While likely intended as a playful callback to his role during the ACA’s passage to mark the reunion with his former running mate, some observers online took the introduction as another sign of the confusion that often features in Biden’s public remarks.
Less plausibly deliberate, however, were remarks Biden delivered two days earlier, during a commissioning ceremony for a new submarine in Wilmington, Delaware. The New York Post reports that, in the course of touting the accomplishments of his wife Jill Biden, the president said he was “deeply proud of the work she is doing as first lady with Joining Forces initiative she started with Michelle Obama when she was vice president” [emphasis added].
Biden has been famously gaffe-prone throughout his decades in politics, but in recent years the increasing frequency of odd, incoherent, and confused statements from the former senator and vice president, as well as the frequency with which he ended his daily campaign schedule by noon or earlier, sparked a marked increase in speculation from friends and foes alike as to whether his mind has deteriorated with old age, so much so that during the 2020 campaign, Biden pledged only to serve one term “if anything changed in my health” to render him mentally incapable of the job.
In February, Trump-era White House physician Ronny Jackson, who is now a Republican U.S. House member from Texas, sent Biden a letter urging him to “under[go] a cognitive test as soon as possible and immediately mak[e] the results available for the American people,” citing several public instances in which Jackson argued Biden exhibited signs of mental decline.
Biden has said he expects to run for a second term in 2024, but many remain doubtful. Whether or not the 2024 nomination would go to Vice President Kamala Harris, who faces her own tensions and doubts among her fellow Democrats, may depend in part on whether Biden resigns the presidency to her before completing his full term.