President Joe Biden’s debate performance was shocking to many Americans because his inner circle have spent years making sure he doesn’t act his age.
For three and a half years, aides concocted a careful plan to hide the 81-year-old’s ailments, and are now the center of widespread allegations they have covered up his decline.
But their effort came to a calamitous halt on Sunday when the 81-year-old Biden spectacularly announced he was withdrawing from the presidential race.
The strategy included carefully picking where walks, choosing shoes to stop falling, surrounding him with staff, shortening his schedule so he gets more sleep and giving him props.
He still stumbled, mumbled, got confused, fell on stage and down stairs.
In turn, the White House press shop got creative with excuses to explain what was happening in plain sight.
The aides have now been accused of being accomplishes in the plot to hide his deterioration before it become clear to the 50 million American viewers watching the CNN debate.
DailyMail.com breaks down the White House cover-up, the strategies they have used to explain any missteps before Biden withdrew from the presidential race
President Joe Biden’s debate performance has put his political future in danger – and has also increased scrutiny on the White House’s years long effort to ensure he doesn’t act his age
The White House’s war on the press and the imaginative ways to explain Biden’s bizarre behavior
Author Chris Whipple, who wrote a biography on Biden in 2022, called this White House the ‘most scripted in history’.
Biden has hosted an historically low number of press conferences and given very little interviews.
When he speaks he relies heavily on a teleprompter and only rarely takes questions.
His press aides are extremely defensive and attack reports questioning his health or showing the president ‘freezing’ or in an awkward encounter.
White House press secretary Jean-Pierre, known for her non-answers and reliance on her binder, has been creative with her excuses for Biden’s conduct.
In June, when several videos showed what appeared to be the president ‘freezing,’ Jean-Pierre dubbed them ‘cheap fakes,’ and pushed that they were deceptively edited.
In one case it’s clear that Biden is engaging with a paratrooper off-screen – in a viral video from the G7 in Italy – but in others, the president does appear to be spaced-out – first at a Juneteenth concert and then at a fundraiser where former President Barack Obama leads him offstage.
But Jean-Pierre has also refused to answer direct questions when the president has been guilty of a gaffe.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre confounded reporters during Monday’s briefing when she couldn’t give a simple explanation for why a Parkinson’s expert had visited the White House eight times
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When Biden called Japan ‘xenophobic’ – lopping the top ally in with Russia and China – Jean-Pierre wouldn’t say what exactly happened.
She acted similarly when reporters tried to get to the bottom of why Biden in September 2022 asked ‘where’s Jackie?’ at a nutrition event.
He was looking around the room for Rep. Jackie Walorski, who had died in a car accident the month before.
Jean-Pierre wouldn’t say whether it was a malfunctioning teleprompter or if the president had forgotten the congresswoman in question was no longer alive.
The press secretary insisted that Walorski was merely ‘at top of mind.’
The Tight Schedule – and how Biden is only ‘sharp’ before 8pm
Since Biden’s disastrous debate performance, more details have leaked about how White House aides schedule his day.
Most of Biden’s events are scheduled between 10 am and 4pm, because that is when Biden is ‘dependably engaged,’ Axios reported.
His preparations for the debate were also held during the day so he had time for an afternoon nap, The New York Times reported.
The president confirmed his scheduling limitations to Democratic governors last week when he said he needed more sleep and to stop holding events past 8pm.
World leaders have even gone out of their way to adapt to his tighter schedule, but it still hasn’t worked.
At the G7 in Switzerland in June 2022, an early evening meeting was scheduled with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, but Biden still skipped it and sent Secretary of State Antony Blinken instead, the Wall Street Journal reported.
When Blinken arrived, he announced to attendees that Biden had gone to bed (a claim the State Department has denied.)
The president has also skipped a number of formal dinners with world leaders while traveling abroad.
He passed on attending the dinner at last year’s NATO summit Vilnius, Lithuania in July.
Two months before that, he left a G7 dinner early when world leaders were gathered at on Miyajima Island outside of Hiroshima, known for its iconic ‘floating’ torii gate and domesticated deer population.
At the G20 in Bali in 2022, Biden also didn’t attend the leaders dinner.
He did, however, show up to dinner in September when the G20 was in India.
For years, detailed notecards have guided President Joe Biden through events, but he’s leaned on them so heavily it’s was concerning Democratic donors – and that was before last month’s debate
The cheat sheets he has relied on before the debate
For years, detailed notecards have guided Biden through events, but his reliance on them in recent months had Democratic donors tense – and that was even before the disastrous debate.
The sheets give a play-by-play of what the president is supposed to do – directions as simple as ‘YOU take YOUR seat.’
They give Biden the run-of-show for events where television cameras are rolling.
And he’s shown that he’s needed the instructions – memorably wandering off an MSNBC set in June 2023 after a sit-down with the network’s Nicolle Wallace.
Some donors voiced concerns to Axios in February when Biden would use the notecards during private meetings to answer pre-screened questions.
The staged question and answer sessions left donors wondering if Biden could withstand the rigors of a campaign, as it looked like he wasn’t able to provide off-the-cuff answers.
The Journal similarly reported that the campaign had long asked donors to submit their questions in advance.
At a fundraiser in New York on the sidelines of September’s United Nations General Assembly, an aide whispered in Biden’s ear when the president appeared at a loss when asked a question about the Middle East, the paper also said.
There was a brief controversy over the notecards the president was using during press conferences when it appeared that Biden had received a question from a Los Angeles Times reporter in advance – something the newspaper denied.
Instead the paper pushed that the reporter had asked the White House press shop questions on that topic, so what Biden had written on his notecard was an educated guess of what the journalist would ask.
Former President Donald Trump has mocked Biden’s use of notecards, especially during press conferences, when the Democrat has a list of names and sticks to it strictly.
‘He’s got a press conference that lasts for about two minutes and he goes like this, he’s reading a card, ‘umm NBC Jim, Jim,’ and then they ask him a question and then he picks up the same paper and he reads the answer,’ Trump said in June at a campaign stop in Arizona.
And just this week, a Philadelphia radio interviewer parted ways with the station after she accepted questions from the Biden campaign when querying the president.
It’s common practice for White House press aides to ask reporters what they plan to ask at briefings or to the president.
President Joe Biden (left) is photographed taking the shorter set of Air Force One stairs after a series of trips. He first fell up Air Force One’s stairs in March 2021 (right), two months into his administration
The short stairs to Air Force One… after he had some issues with the bigger one
Last summer, Biden almost exclusively started taking the small stairs to board Air Force One.
He originally tripped up the stairs of the presidential plane just two months into his administration – heading to Atlanta in March 2021.
He did so again when leaving Warsaw in February 2023 – after his grueling secret trip to Ukraine.
And he did so again in March 2023 as he headed to Selma, Alabama.
But after he tripped over a sandbag at a Colorado commencement, aides acknowledged to Politico that Biden’s use of the shorter Air Force One staircase was intentional to avoid future falls – as it cuts down the number of steps from 26 to 14.
In April President Joe Biden started walking to Marine One swarmed by his staff after some aides fretted that his solo walk across the South Lawn called too much attention to his stiff gait
The Swarm of aides as he walks to catch a flight
In April, Biden suddenly changed the protocol for how he walked to Marine One – the presidential helicopter that waits for him on the South Lawn.
For three-plus years, unless Biden was with the first lady, he’d walk to the aircraft solo.
Aides would wait until the president had boarded and then make their own way to the helicopter.
But all of the sudden when Biden was walking to the helicopter, a swarm of aides joined him for the lawn-crossing, which is captured by the White House press.
The swarm, according to Axios, was decided upon by the president after some aides fretted that his solo walks across the South Lawn called too much attention to his stiff gait.
With the aides surrounding him, the visual is less stark.
White House spokesperson Andrew Bates ridiculed Axios for calling attention to the new, obscured view of the president walking.
‘He’s fully visible except for a few seconds,’ Bates said. ‘Impeach.’
President Joe Biden started sporting more sneakers after he fell over a sandbag at a commencement ceremony in Colorado last summer. He’s photographed with first lady Jill Biden in September 2023
This spring Biden started wearing a $150 pair of wide sole trainers from the sportswear brand Hoka
President Joe Biden was sporting a new pair of kicks to the debate in Atlanta last month. DailyMail.com identified them as Cole Haan’s ØriginalGrand Energy Twin Oxfords, which retail for around $200 and give the wearer ‘bouncy comfort’ with ‘all-day responsive cushioning’
The Shoes which help prevent tripping
For months, the White House has been on a do-not-let-the-president-trip mission, with Biden trying out several different kinds of footwear.
The president suffers from sensory peripheral neuropathy, which can cause numbness in the feet and lead to tripping.
In the months following last summer’s sandbag incident, the president was sporting more sneakers – including Sketchers – when he walked around.
And then in spring, Biden started wearing a $150 pair of wide sole trainers from the sportswear brand Hoka.
On the night of the disastrous debate, Biden debuted another new sneaker-like dress shoe.
He sported black Cole Haan ‘ØriginalGrand Energy’ oxfords – sold for around $200 – that give the wearer ‘bouncy comfort’ with ‘all-day responsive cushioning.’
Biden also stopped wearing toe-clips when taking bike rides during trips to his Rehoboth Beach home – after flopping sideways on his bike during a June 2022 ride.
Indents on President Joe Biden’s face when he left for a trip to Chicago in late June 2023 prompted the White House to tell journalists that he’s started using a CPAC machine
The CPAP Machine that has left marks on his face
One time the White House was forthright with the press was after the White House physician assisted Biden in getting more sleep by starting him on a CPAP machine.
In June 2023, eagle-eyed reporters noticed indents on Biden’s face – with the White House quickly confirming that the president had started using a CPAP machine, used to treat sleep apnea, in recent weeks.
Since 2008, Biden’s sleep apnea was part of his public medical record.
Those disclosures came from the Obama campaign after Biden was selected to be vice president.
At the time, doctors believed Biden’s irregular heartbeat, known as an atrial fibrillation, was likely linked ot his sleep apnea.
But a 2019 medical report, put out by the Biden campaign, said that Biden’s sleep apnea had improved after he had sinus and nasal passage surgeries.
It’s unclear, then, what prompted Biden to start using the machine four years later, with a White House source telling Bloomberg it wasn’t related to a new medical condition or environmental conditions.
The lines on Biden’s face resulted in some news stories about his schedule.
The New York Post asked in April: ‘What time did he get up?’ when the mask lines were still visible on the president’s face shortly after noon.