President Joe Biden sputtered his way through a nine-minute appearance Sunday night in St. Croix to pay tribute to the late President Jimmy Carter.
Biden's coughing and sluggish delivery reinforced concerns about the 82-year-old president's declining cognitive abilities.
The president's health has been back in the news since The Wall Street Journal published a story on December 19 on how aides dealt with a 'diminished' president throughout his entire term.
The report revealed that aides would have to repeat obvious instructions to Biden – such as where to exit a stage.
President-elect Donald Trump would often mock Biden getting lost during his own rallies on the 2024 campaign trail.
The Journal also said that Hollywood producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, who co-chaired Biden's doomed 2024 campaign, had been tasked with finding the president a voice coach to improve his 'fading warble' as the newspaper put it.
The fading warble was fully apparent during Biden's remarks to the traveling press about the death of Carter Sunday night.
As Biden's term draws to a close, pundits and journalists have questioned whether media coverage of the president properly scrutinized what the White House was saying about his health.
DailyMail.com, throughout Biden's presidency, has chronicled the president's frequent bumbles and stumbles, which should have served as a clue that something was going awry.
But most Americans – and even a former White House aide – were shocked by Biden's poor performance in the late June presidential debate in Atlanta against Trump, the event that – less than a month later – prompted the Democrat to drop out.
Biden's successor, Vice President Kamala Harris, would go on to lose the presidential election.
On Fox News Sunday guest Cal Thomas said journalists were the biggest losers of 2024 for 'covering up' the president's condition.
'They covered up for Biden's mental acuity decline,' Thomas railed.
He also blasted journalists for not taking the Hunter Biden laptop seriously – which DailyMail.com authenticated – believing instead the 50-plus intelligence officials who pushed that the laptop was Russian disinformation in the weeks prior to the 2020 election.
'The media followed all of this,' Thomas said. 'And I think it's a disgrace to the profession that I've been a part of for a half a century. And I wish that we get some new blood in the media to actually practice journalism instead of practicing politics.'
CBS' Chief Legal Correspondent Jan Crawford also blasted outlets for failing to cover Biden's decline.
Biden's coughing and sluggish delivery reinforced concerns about the 82-year-old president's declining cognitive abilities
She was asked during a roundtable discussion on Sunday's Face the Nation what the most under-covered story of 2024 was.
'That would be, to me, Joe Biden's obvious cognitive decline that became undeniable in a televised debate,' she answered. 'Unquestioned.'
'It's starting to emerge now that his advisers kind of managed his limitations, which has been reported in The Wall Street Journal, for four years,' Crawford went on.
At the same time, she noted, Biden 'insisted that he could still run for president.'
'We should have much more forcefully questioned whether he was fit for office for another four years, which could have led to a primary for the Democrats,' Crawford noted. 'It could have changed the scope of the entire election.'
Self-help guru Marianne Williamson and Rep. Dean Phillips were among the Democrats who mounted challenges against Biden, with Phillips specifically warning about polling that showed a real wariness to elect someone the president's age to another four-year term.
But other Democrats with presidential ambitions deferred to the elderly commander in chief, giving him an easy path to the 2024 nomination.
Crawford then pointed to a more recent report in which The Washington Post quoted aides who said Biden believed he could have beaten Trump had he stayed in the race.
'Still, incredibly, we read in The Washington Post that his advisers are saying that he regrets that he dropped out of the race, that he thinks he could have beaten Trump,' Crawford said. 'And I think that is either delusional or they're gaslighting the American people.'
The White House continues to push that Biden's cognitive health is fine.
Spokesperson Andrew Bates wouldn't substantiate the Journal's reporting and instead touted that Biden 'earned the most accomplished record of any modern commander in chief and rebuilt the middle class because of his attention to policy details that impact millions of lives.'
White House spokespeople have also pointed to the president's childhood stutter and blamed his disastrous debate performance on Biden having a cold.
Biden has trouble zipping up his pants. Good riddance.
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