White House And ‘Morning Joe’ Blast Wall Street Journal Report That Joe Biden “Shows Signs Of Slipping”

deadline.com:

The Wall Street Journal has come under extensive criticism from the White House for a report on Joe Biden‘s mental acuity, with spokespersons blasting the story for featuring just one on-the-record Republican source, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, to claim that the president is slipping.

On Wednesday morning, Morning Joe added to the chorus, with Joe Scarborough calling it a “Trump hit piece.” In the piece, McCarthy said, “I used to meet with him when he was vice president.

I’d go to his house. He’s not the same person.” In the piece, McCarthy described speaking to Biden during debt ceiling negotiations in May of last year.

McCarthy said that the president was sharp on the phone one day, but the next day, in an in-person meeting, the president “was going back to all the old stuff that had been done for a long time.” The Journal also reported that more recently, in a meeting on Ukraine funding in January, Biden “spoke so softly at times that some participants struggled to hear him,” and read from notes “to make obvious points,  paused for extended periods and sometimes closed his eyes for so long that some in the room wondered whether he had tuned out.” Scarborough challenged the account, noting other reporting that McCarthy had told allies that he had found Biden “to be mentally sharp in meetings.” Scarborough noted that after the May in-person meeting at the White House, McCarthy was publicly praiseworthy of the progress made, calling it “better than any other time we’ve had discussions.” “I have repeatedly stated on air that I am an avid reader and cheerleader for the WSJ,” Scarborough wrote on X/Twitter. “That is what makes this false, biased story so disappointing.