As ailing Joe Biden’s term comes to end, many in Washington agree that it has been hard to tell who was actually in charge of running the country over the last four years.
Biden, 81, leaned on a close circle of unelected advisers and officials who had been put into roles usually occupied by the president, it has emerged.
Throughout his presidency, the White House carried out an extensive, deliberate and years-long cover-up in an attempt to hide his rapidly diminishing mental condition, a new bombshell investigation by The Wall Street Journal has exposed.
A well-connected Democratic strategist confirmed to DailyMail.com that influence over Biden had been ‘concentrated by people who are not external facing,’ including his close advisors Bruce Reed, Steve Ricchetti, and Mike Donilon.
He was also shielded by senior advisers who were put into roles that others felt the president should have occupied. The officials who stood in included Ricchetti, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, and National Economic Council head Lael Brainard.
Biden’s lower-level staff have long griped that this secretive ‘triumvirate’ – also known as the ‘Biden whisperers’ – developed an outsized influence over America’s oldest ever president.
It was also revealed that his team hired a vocal coach, scrapped meetings on his ‘bad days’, and kept him at arm’s length from his own Cabinet members.
The Administration would also gaslight those who dared to claim Biden’s abilities had deteriorated since he was Barack Obama’s vice president.
During Biden’s presidency, aides would often have to repeat cues to him at events. He was given simplistic instruction cards with detailed pointers on where to walk, sit and look.
Biden’s team even asked Hollywood studio mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg to find a voice coach to improve his wavering and fading voice. And when his voice did fail him, the team would help Biden by finding ways to avoid phone calls or public events.
A person who witnessed what happened with Biden in the last four years told the Journal that a small group of aides stuck close to him at all times and provided intense ‘hand holding’.
‘They body him to such a high degree,’ the source claimed.
At the same time, press aides who were tasked with compiling news clips were instructed by senior staff to leave out any negative stories about the president.
The protective circle around Biden was heightened because he entered the White House at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and his staff took extensive steps to avoid him catching the virus.
But the strategy was also designed to prevent Biden from making gaffes or taking physical missteps, which would damage his image or create headaches for Democrats.
However, despite the efforts of ‘eager beaver hand-holders’, Biden’s decline became increasingly obvious, especially after Special Counsel Robert Hur last year released a report depicting a forgetful and frail then-81 year old.
Hur decided not to charge Biden for keeping classified documents in his Delaware garage because he ‘would likely present himself to a jury’ as a ‘sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.’
Biden could not even repeat back to his staff lines they fed him while preparing for his interview with Hur, the Journal reported.
At the White House, Biden would also cancel important national security meetings, leaving aides to explaining to attendees that the president had ‘bad days and good days’.
Egregious examples of the White House cover-up included one relayed by Democratic Congressman Adam Smith.
In 2021, when Smith was chair of the House Armed Services Committee, he tried desperately to get in touch with Biden ahead of the bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan to share his serious concerns about the plan. His attempts were rebuffed.
When 13 U.S. service members and 170 Afghans were killed, Smith criticized Biden publicly and was reprimanded by Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Biden finally called Smith to apologize which, despite his key role in Congress, was reportedly the only personal call Smith received in the president’s entire four-year term.
Close aides were also deeply worried about comparisons between Biden and his wife Jill Biden, who is eight years his junior and conducted a packed schedule that only highlighted the president’s ‘plodding’ pace and frailty, the Journal reported.
Even before Biden’s first day in the Oval Office in 2021, there were concerns that Jill’s ‘energy’ was making her husband ‘look bad’.
During his 2020 election campaign, Biden’s team sought to play down how many events Jill was holding.
By late June this year, Biden’s decline was on full display when he debated Donald Trump.
Gaffes, fumbles and blank stares from the president filled the hour-and-a-half televised event. It proved catastrophic for his campaign.
The face-off with Trump is what ultimately led the public, and even senior Democrats in Washington, to call for Biden to end his bid for reelection.
A month after the debate, Biden threw in the towel and endorsed his Vice President Kamala Harris, who Trump nonetheless defeated on November 5.
White House spokesperson Andrew Bates refuted the Wall Street Journal’s account that Biden has declined.
Instead, Bates said that he has ‘earned the most accomplished record of any modern commander in chief and rebuilt the middle class because of his attention to policy details that impact millions of lives.’
Biden has been an undisciplined public speaker throughout his more than 50-year political career.
He also had a childhood stutter that he often cites for the reason he would stumble over his words.
Despite the efforts of aides Biden is leaving office with members of his own party lambasting him for being ‘selfish.’
Many believe that he was only looking out for himself by staying in the 2024 presidential race past the point of being unfit for another term.
Others are furious over his decision to pardon his son Hunter, 54, earlier this month after he was convicted of lying on a federal form to purchase a gun in 2018.
Polls showed Biden’s approval rating hitting an all-time low as he prepared to leave office.