In a new scoop reported Friday morning, it turns out President Joe Biden's need for a cheat sheet when in public dealing with reporters — often consisting of a list of pre-approved reporters to call on at press conferences and sometimes including talking points to respond to what seem to be pre-approved questions — extends to private interactions behind closed doors.
"President Biden has been using notecards in closed-door fundraisers, calling on prescreened donors and then consulting his notes to provide detailed answers, according to people familiar with the routine," Axios reported as Biden closes out a multi-day stint on the West Coast that included meetings with donors as the 2024 campaign heats up.
Quite understandably, "Biden's reliance on notecards to help explain his own policy positions — on questions he knows are coming — is raising concerns among some donors about Biden's age," Axios explained. And while it just may be some "some donors" who have concerns about the octogenarian president's age, it seems likely more are privately worried.
As an ABC News/Ipsos poll found earlier in February, a whopping 86 percent of Americans say Biden is simply "too old" to serve another four years in the White House. That means Biden's age and its effect on him is as scrutinized as ever, even among Democrats — 73 percent of whom said in the poll that the president is too old to continue.
Per Axios, the president's "staged Q&A sessions have left some donors wondering whether Biden can withstand the rigors of a presidential campaign, let alone potential debates with former President Trump." No kidding.
🧐NEW: Biden's cheat sheets, from @axios @HansNichols
— Mike Allen (@mikeallen) February 23, 2024
Biden's reliance on notecards to explain his own positions, on questions he knows are coming (sometimes at closed-door fundraisers), is raising some donors' worries about his age
Behind the scenes👇https://t.co/7Rz7sfdqI5
Democrats — and all voters, really — are right to be worried about Biden's age given his trips, falls, and gaffes that happen in public. But the fact that even in private closed-door donor events — at times when reporters have been escorted out and when Biden is taking just a few questions from benefactors that have been vetted by the president's aides — he still needs a cheat sheet is notable.
Considering the contents of Special Counsel Robert Hur's bombshell report on the investigation of Biden's mishandling of classified documents, one gets a peek at how unscripted Biden, without his cheat sheets, actually performs. In interviews with Hur, Biden couldn't remember when he was vice president to Barack Obama and he even, after raising the matter himself, couldn't remember when his son Beau died.
Is that the level at which Biden operates without the help of his handlers?
The White House insists that Hur's evaluation of Biden as an "elderly man with poor memory" is incorrect and gratuitous, yet that's exactly how Biden continues to act.
What's more, the fact that loyal Biden donors are raising concerns about Biden's ability to wage a real campaign — not just run a retread of his 2020 basement-dwelling virtual one — or debate his likely opponent Donald Trump before November should worry Biden's team about how other, less financially invested, Democrats across the country are feeling.
