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Panicked Democrats are barraging the White House with advice on how to make President Biden appear more youthful – even pushing for better make-up and enhanced lighting – as his re-election campaign grinds on despite his cognitive decline.
Allies and operatives have been flooding the White House with advice since Biden’s disastrous press conference Thursday, when he lashed out at special counsel Robert Hur for characterizing him as an “elderly man with a poor memory.”
Some are telling the president to reimagine his makeup routine, CNN reported, while others are urging his staff to improve the lighting at his public appearances.
Others want Biden to begin his events seated in a chair to keep him from having to shuffle slowly to a podium – all in an effort to help the 81-year-old president sidestep questions about his age.
“The cake is already baked,” a despondent former Biden White House aide told The Post. “Most Democrats feel that way about the president already. They think he’s effective and a good person, but nobody really wants him to run. ..and Democrats don’t have the guts to try and remove him from the ticket.”
Longtime Democratic consultant James Carville said the issue of Biden’s mental condition had so harmed his chances in November that a criminal conviction of Donald Trump, his likely opponent, is the president’s only hope.
“We’re officially in Hail Mary mode here,” Carville told The Hill Saturday.
Two medical-doctors-turned-congressmen also voiced their concerns Saturday.
Rep. Gregory Murphy (R-NC), a former urologist, said he “witnessed a very fragile individual” when he saw Biden at last week’s National Prayer Breakfast.
“The unsteadiness of his gait, the slowness of his movements, and the weakness of his voice speak to the fact he is in a debilitated state,” Murphy told the Washington Examiner. “I do not believe he is fit to be president of the United States.”
“It’s undeniable that President Biden is in mental decline and is not fit to hold office,” said Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-TN), a former general practitioner.
Behind the scenes at the White House, US Attorney General Merrick Garland is emerging as a “villain” in the Biden administration report, Politico reported Friday.
Two people close to the president said Biden has vented at length about Garland and believes he should have moved to “edit” politically damaging portions of special counsel Robert Hur’s report.
While the report cleared Biden of official wrongdoing, its assertion that he was too elderly and memory-impaired to stand trial has roiled his presidency and sent waves of doubt though his 2024 reelection campaign.
While Biden and his aides have savaged Hur as a partisan — with many noting the special counsel is a longtime Republican and Trump-era holdover — they have publicly held their fire on Garland. The Attorney General himself has been noticeably quiet since the report was released.
“What Democrats do is they bend over backwards not to look partisan, and then they end up hiring people that are partisan but in the other direction,” one Biden donor said. “There’s no question in my mind that the villain here is Merrick Garland.”
If Garland had redacted Hur’s report, he would have been required to explain the changes to Congress, according to Politico.
Insiders said it is unlikely Garland would return as Attorney General, should Biden win a second term. The president has been cross with Garland for years, particularly over the years-long Justice Department probe of his son, Hunter, the sources said.
Garland has faced scrutiny by Republicans over his handling of the Hunter Biden probe.
Multiple whistleblowers have now come forward to insist the DOJ improperly interceded to spare the younger Biden from punishment for a host of alleged crimes.
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