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Biden’s doctor reportedly met with top neurologist at White House
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Joe Biden’s doctor met with a leading Washington neurologist at the White House this year, it was reported on Saturday.
The report came after Biden on Friday ruled out taking an independent cognitive test and releasing its findings publicly, in an interview with ABC News arranged following his disastrous performance in last week’s presidential TV debate with Donald Trump.
According to White House visitor logs reviewed by the New York PostDr Kevin Cannard, a Parkinson’s disease expert at Walter Reed medical center, met with Dr Kevin O’Connor, a doctor of osteopathic medicine who has treated the president for years.
The visit took place at the White House residence clinic on 17 January. Cannard has visited the White House house eight times since August 2023. On seven of those visits, most recently in late March, he met with Megan Nasworthy, a liaison between Walter Reed and the White House.
Biden has consistently rejected taking any cognitive test, including in August 2020 when he dismissed a reporter’s question with: “Why the hell would I take a test?” He has continued to dismiss the need for one and, according to aides, has not received one during his three annual physical exams during his term in the White House.
The Washington Post on Saturday reported a White House aide saying that O’Connor, who has been Biden’s doctor since 2009, has never recommended that Biden take a cognitive test.
O’Connor has said that his most important job is to offer Biden an affirmative “Good morning, Mr President” – to get Biden off the on the right track each day.
During Biden’s ABC News interview on Friday, the anchor George Stephanopoulos, who was communications director in the Clinton White House, asked Biden if had taken specific tests for cognitive capability. “No one said I had to … they said I’m good,” Biden replied.
Later in the broadcast, Biden was asked if he would do an independent neurological and cognitive exam and release the results. “I get a cognitive test every day,” Biden said. “Everything I do – you know, not only am I campaigning, but I’m running the world.”
Pressed on the issue, he said: “I’ve already done it.”
Questions about Biden’s mental state continued on Saturday when the two radio hosts who interviewed him briefly on Thursday said that the Biden campaign had given them a list of approved questions. Wisconsin radio host Earl Ingram said that Biden aides had sent him a list of four questions in advance, about which there was no negotiation.
“They gave me the exact questions to ask,” Ingram told the Associated Press. “There was no back and forth.”
Philadelphia civic radio host Andrea Lawful-Sanders told CNN she had received a list of eight questions, from which she approved four. Both interviews had been scheduled to restore Biden’s credibility following his meandering debate performance with Donald Trump a week earlier.
Biden campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt said it is “not at all an uncommon practice for interviewees” and that acceptance of the questions was not a prerequisite for an interview to go ahead. However, both interviews had been structured for Biden to tout his achievements for Black voters.
On Saturday, Trump sarcastically called on Biden to “ignore his many critics and move forward, with alacrity and strength, with his powerful and far reaching campaign”. Last week, Trump’s campaign pre-emptively launched attack ads against vice-president Kamala Harris, who is polling better in a Trump match-up than the president.
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Earlier this year, the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, defended O’Connor’s decision not to administer a cognitive test when the issue came up following a report by the special counsel Robert Hur into classified documents found at Biden’s Delaware home that concluded Biden was a “well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory”.
At that time, as now, the White House pushed back, accusing Hur of being part of a partisan smear campaign. “I’m well-meaning, and I’m elderly, and I know what I’m doing,” Biden said at a news conference. “My memory is fine.”
But the eight visits Kevin Cannard has made to the White House over the past 11 months are certain to raise further questions about the 81-year-old president’s mental abilities in the wake of his debate with Donald Trump and subsequent verbal mistakes, including during a radio interview on Thursday when he said he was “proud” to be the “first Black woman to serve with a Black president”.
Cannard has served as the “neurology specialist supporting the White House medical unit” since 2012 and published academic papers including one last year in the Parkinsonism & Related Disorders journal that focused on the “early stage” of the brain degenerative disorder.
Ronny Jackson, a Republican congressman in Texas who was White House doctor for Barack Obama and Trump, has previously called for Biden to undergo a cognitive exam and accused O’Connor and Biden’s family of trying to “cover up” problems with Biden’s mental abilities.
Jackson told the New York Post he believed that O’Connor and Biden “have led the cover up”.
“Kevin O’Connor is like a son to Jill Biden – she loves him,” Jackson continued, adding that ‘they knew they could trust Kevin to say and do anything that needed to be said or done”.
Last week, the White House initially denied but later confirmed that Biden had seen a doctor since the debate. It has said that the president’s performance was affected, variously, by a cold, over-preparation and jet-lag. Biden has said simply: “I screwed up.”
Biden’s immense play for Puerto Rican voters: From the Politics Desk
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Welcome to the online version ofFrom the Politics Deska evening newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics crew’s most modern reporting and evaluation from the campaign path, the White Residence and Capitol Hill.
In as of late’s edition, senior White Residence correspondent Gabe Gutierrez experiences on the efforts from Joe Biden’s campaign and White Residence to gather over voters from Puerto Rico. Plus, “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker has an irregular interview with mature Supreme Courtroom Justice Stephen Breyer.
Why Biden is making a bet immense on voters from Puerto Rico
By Gabe Gutierrez
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Puerto Ricans on the island can’t vote for president this November. However these who’re from the U.S. territory and now dwell on the mainland are turning into a predominant precedence for Joe Biden’s campaign.
Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday visited Puerto Rico for the necessary time since taking region of job, touting the Biden administration’s serve for the island as it continues to rebuild following a few hurricanes.
The outing comes as Biden’s campaign has been investing more in Latino outreach much sooner this election cycle — and it’s not honest specializing in the same old vast-reaching retailers adore Univision and Telemundo.
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The campaign is already airing ads on WAPA-TV, a predominant dispute in Puerto Rico, contrasting Biden’s picture with Donald Trump’s on smartly being care prices and reproductive rights, hoping the message will obtain its methodology relief to the mainland. Additionally it’s a ways working ads on local radio stations on the island and across the U.S. concentrating on Puerto Ricans and Latinos more broadly.
“Of us that are fragment of the diaspora receive their files from it,” mentioned one campaign loyal familiar with the technique. “We’re being intentional.”
The Puerto Rican diaspora on the U.S. mainland is an increasing form of gaining political clout sooner than the 2024 election. The vital swing dispute of Pennsylvania has the third-largest inhabitants of Puerto Ricans in the U.S. — about 500,000 — in the relief of Florida and Unique York.
The rising series of Puerto Ricans in central Florida — a key dwelling in a perennial swing dispute — has drawn deal of attention from campaigns in earlier elections. However with Florida leaning further to the exact in most modern years, Democrats are inserting a elevated emphasis on Puerto Rican voters in the more narrowly divided Pennsylvania.
Maria Quiñones-Sánchez, a mature city council member in Philadelphia who’s now working with Boricuas Con Biden, a community organizing Puerto Rican voters for the president, mentioned that the campaign engaged with the Latino neighborhood total in Pennsylvania too slack in 2020, but she’s encouraged by the early outreach this year.
“The Puerto Rican/Latino neighborhood just will not be simplest increasing, but electing people in all corners of the dispute,” she mentioned. “So we modified into that margin that others don’t accumulate a examine that’s going to gather the adaptation if the campaign engages us — and ties our truth to the future of our nation.”
What worries Stephen Breyer about The US’s democracy
By Kristen Welker
It’s been practically two years since Stephen Breyer stepped down from the U.S. Supreme Courtroom, and it’s been greater than a year since his closing TV interview.
However I sat down with Breyer this week to debate his new e book, “Learning the Constitution: Why I Chose Pragmatism, Now not Textualism,” in addition to his thoughts on the Supreme Courtroom, American politics and the ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade.
In our interview, Breyer talked about what worries him about the dispute of this nation’s democracy.
WELKER: Build you dread that too many people accumulate misplaced the flexibility to listen on this nation?
BREYER: Sure.
WELKER: And where does that disappear away us?
BREYER: Rotten.
WELKER: What does that doubtlessly suggest for the dispute of this nation’s democracy?
BREYER: Hiya, look, there are two sides to many things. One, you mentioned United States of The US? Hiya. Here’s, in fragment, the United States of The US. So, the United States of The US? We same old to contemplate, and I mute contemplate, that presumably we’re not listening as much as we must.
Breyer also mentioned the substandard leak of the draft notion overturning Roe v. Wade used to be “unhappy.” I also requested him about experiences that earlier than the leak, discussions amongst the justices had been coalescing around a compromise that will maybe accumulate left Roe in region, whereas imposing a ban on abortion after 15 weeks.
WELKER: Did you contemplate that a compromise used to be likely sooner than the leak? Round 15 weeks?
BREYER: I in general hope for compromise.
WELKER: So you had been hopeful there on the total is a compromise?
BREYER: You’ll want to position phrases in my mouth. I’m cautious what I convey on this. Because I convey our pursuits are different. I don’t have to gather info. I’ve written what I’ve conception. Whenever you contemplate there might be info in here or in the dissent, disappear exact ahead. However I don’t have to reveal something and accumulate a disclose.
WELKER: Correct form to make certain even supposing. Did you contemplate a compromise used to be likely?
BREYER: I always contemplate it’s likely. I always — I always contemplate it’s likely, in general up unless the closing minute.
At a time when the Supreme Courtroom is at the center of the 2024 election, Breyer’s phrases carry weight. Two of the most life like likely considerations voters will grapple with this November are reproductive rights and the route of The US’s democracy.
Fetch sure to tune in Sunday to “Meet the Press” for more on Breyer’s thoughts about Roe v. Wade, weapons and the Trump-linked cases sooner than the Supreme Courtroom.
Politics tamfitronics ????️ This present day’s top experiences
- ???? Here we disappear again? Procure. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., filed a motion to oust Speaker Mike Johnson simply because the Residence voted to keep a ways from a authorities shutdown. It’s unclear how the Residence will act on the motion, but Greene mentioned it used to be “more of a warning than a pink lumber.” Read more →
- ???? majority: Procure. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., presented he would resign from Congress early, in mid-April, a disappear that will disappear away Residence Republicans with a razor-thin 217-213 majority. Read more →
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- ???? Trump’s cash crunch, cont.: Trump also claimed he has “practically” $500 million in cash, undercutting his lawyers’ claims that he would not be in a space to construct up a examine the $464 million judgment in opposition to him in the Unique York civil fraud case. Read more →
- ⚖️ “Notice the money”: The Unique York Times explores Licensed decent In style Merrick Garland and the Justice Department’s investigation into Trump. Read more →
- ???? Garden Converse skirmish: The predominant battle between the two predominant Democratic Senate candidates in Unique Jersey isn’t over protection, but over the literal ballots they’ll seem on. In the meantime, Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez, who’s facing federal bribery charges, mentioned he’s “hopeful” he can also hurry for his seat as an fair if he’s exonerated. Read more →
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