Chris Cillizza: ‘People Around Biden Worked to Make You Feel Bad’ for Asking About His Decline

Yesterday Duane wrote about the Wall Street Journal story outlining Joe Biden’s decline in office, something which the entire media was only willing to admit after his disastrous debate performance. But the Federalist highlighted another part of this story revealed this week by the NY Times. It came in a story titled “A Weary Biden Heads for the Exit.” [emphasis added]

This is the twilight of Mr. Biden’s presidency, the final days of the final chapter of an epic half-century political journey that has had more than its share of twists and turns. Time is catching up with Mr. Biden. He looks a little older and a little slower with each passing day. Aides say he remains plenty sharp in the Situation Room, calling world leaders to broker a cease-fire in Lebanon or deal with the chaos of Syria’s rebellion. But it is hard to imagine that he seriously thought he could do the world’s most stressful job for another four years…

Even when pushing for his priorities, Mr. Biden has found it hard to break through. During his visit to the Amazon rainforest last month, his fragility appeared painfully clear to those traveling with him.

After speaking for seven minutes on a day of draining humidity, a blue shirt hanging loosely over his frame, he turned to slowly shuffle away down a dirt path as several people in the audience not used to seeing him up close said they held their breath, worried that he would trip. (Aides said his gait was no more unsteady than usual.)…

When Mr. Biden visited the National Museum of Slavery that afternoon, he did not actually enter the main building to view the exhibitions; instead, artifacts were brought outside to show him, which two people familiar with the planning attributed to fear that the steep stairs would be too much of a challenge. (The White House denied that the stairs were a concern and said he was not brought inside for scheduling and logistical reasons.)

It really is hard to imagine that Biden or anyone around him thought he could do this for another four years. But I think it’s worth pointing out that Biden wasn’t alone in his apparent delusion. He had the support of his staff and most of the media in that effort. Meanwhile, people like me and many other conservatives were pointing out the obvious for at least two years and generally being treated like conspiracy theorists for doing so.

I made the case the day after the election that this was the Democrats’ Big Lie and that it likely explained why Biden’s campaign (before he dropped out) was a non-starter.

Even if you believed he was capable of running the country at any given moment, the idea that he had another four years in him was a bigger fantasy than The Lord of the Rings. And yet, for nearly two years, Democrats shrugged it off and denied everything.

This was the big lie.

Democrats have branded that phrase as an anti-Trump reminder of Jan. 6, but for most of the last two years they were telling their own big lie and hoping everyone would go along with it. The big lie was that Biden was fine and would be fine far into the future. As the evidence kept piling up that this wasn’t true, Democrats resorted to ever more defiant denials, i.e. he’s fine behind the scenes and claims to the contrary are a media fixation.

While all of this was happening the media would occasionally report on the issue only to be browbeaten for doing so by the White House. Today, Chris Cillizza, formerly of CNN, takes a look back and apologizes for not taking this more seriously. He admits that he would frequently get prompts from Republicans about it but says he blew it off, partly because the White House was so adamant in its denials.

“Republicans would regularly ping me and say ‘Why don’t you ask more questions about Joe Biden and how he’s doing? He’s 76, 77, 78-year-old man,'” Cillizza said. He continued, “And I would sort of brush them off because what I would say is ‘Well, there’s no obvious evidence that he’s declining. He moves a little slower. He talks a little slower but there’s no evidence that he’s declining.’

“And the White House and the people around Joe Biden were absolutely adamant that suggesting anything…asking the question about whether he was in some physical, mental or both decline was offensive. ‘How could you?! It’s age shaming.’ And I think impacted me at some level. Because while I did ask the question from time to time…I didn’t really push on it if I’m being honest.”

A bit later he returned to this adding, “There was a shame factor that went into that. People around Biden worked to make you feel bad when you asked whether he was up to the job of being president, running for president again and serving for another four years…And they did a very good job, until they couldn’t any more, of hiding it.”

Two points here. First, I guarantee you that there are 50 or 100 other DC reporters who could all tell this same story. All of them were cowed by the White House for years. That’s obvious in retrospect. Few wanted to risk their access to the exclusive club by stating what was increasingly evident to everyone. That was especially true given that the right had taken up the issue. No media person wants to agree with them. It’s career suicide to take anything the right says seriously.

Second, while it would be easy to beat up on Cillizza for getting such an important story fundamentally wrong, the fact is that he’s one of the only reporters who is admitting it. Yes, it’s too little, too late but at least he’s willing to say he personally missed it and explain why. I don’t see any of the other reporters who were droning on about “cheap fakes” doing that. They’ve had every day since Joe Biden’s debate to reflect on who was right and who was wrong here, and for the most part they’ve done that reflection very quietly.

“In retrospect, it’s clear that the people close to him knew that, at best, he had some good days and some bad days,” Cillizza said. “June 27, the debate, clearly was a bad day. But if the bad day was that bad, as bad as he performed on that debate stage, the fact that he had been president without a whole lot of questions being asked about his physical and mental decline and I’ll add the fact that he continued to be president from June 27 until January 20, 2025 I think is a little bit concerning and begs the question when did people near him know?”

We’re lucky that the moment when the Big Lie imploded was just a debate and not an international crisis. Actually, we don’t even know that Biden’s decline wasn’t part of a failed response to some crisis because the White House has been lying to all of us for years.

Did Biden have a bad day during the withdrawal from Afghanistan? Did he have a bad day when deciding how to respond to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? Did he have a bad day when making decisions about the border crisis? 

The fact is we don’t know the answers to these questions because the White House lied to us and the media mostly went along with it. In the scope of that institutional failure, Chris Cillizza is just a small rounding error. I’m more inclined to give him some credit for at least telling the truth about it now than to beat him up for doing what every other reporter was doing then.

Of course his takeaway is that journalist need to learn the lesson from their failure with Biden and apply it to Donald Trump, which is just amazing. Of course they are going to learn their lesson now. Of course they are going to hound Trump about his health using their failure with Biden as an excuse. It’s the most predictable thing in the world.

Here’s Cillizza’s full apology video.