President Joe Biden reportedly skipped a meeting with world leaders — which was intentionally set up “in the early evening” — shortly after the war in Ukraine erupted because he needed to “go to bed.”
The startling revelation raises serious concerns about Biden’s ability to manage crises beyond the 6-hour schedule he keeps – 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. — which also includes naps.
The Wall Street Journal reported that German officials sought to meet with Biden in June 2022, just a few months after Russia invaded Ukraine, along with other world leaders during the annual G7 Summit.
German officials were “aware of Biden’s fatigue at night” and decided to accommodate the president by holding a “confidential” meeting about the war in Ukraine “in the early evening” so that he could attend.
However, Biden never showed up. Secretary of State Antony Blinken attended instead and announced that Biden “had to go to bed,” according to multiple sources.
The WSJ report highlighted how Biden aides “have aggressively stage-managed” the 81-year-old president’s mental and physical decline over the last two years, including micromanaging all of his public appearances, blocking him from impromptu remarks with reporters, declining halftime interviews during the last two Super Bowls, limiting his travel because he didn’t have “the stamina,” creating barriers to block reporters from being able to ask Biden questions, and blasting music at events so that no one hears reporter’s questions.
A former top Biden adviser told the publication they were stunned by how much Biden had declined when they met with the president last summer, saying that the situation was “not good.”
One Democratic donor told the publication that when they saw Biden earlier this year, it was clear that he had “lost a step” as he struggled to speak at an event in South Florida.
At a fundraiser in New York last year, donors were reportedly “stuck by how fragile (Biden) seemed.” Biden couldn’t remember the word “veteran” and had to ask the audience for help coming up with the word that referred to someone who had served in the military.
The report noted that Biden used to engage with reporters frequently as a senator and vice president but started cutting off the media’s access to him during his presidency, to the point where he has held fewer press conferences and interviews than any other president in modern history.