White House aides hid Biden’s apparent mental decline from Day 1 of his presidency, explosive report reveals

White House aides covered up President Biden’s apparent mental decline from Day 1 of his presidency, shielded the aging commander-in-chief from the public eye and even rearranged his schedule after scattered appearances, an explosive report revealed Thursday.

The lack of access to the nation’s oldest-ever president has been well known in Washington — where Biden hosted the fewest major press conferences in modern history and often tripped over the podium when he appeared — but how much the White House made up for the obscurity had until now has been hidden, according to aides, Democratic lawmakers and donors who spoke The Wall Street Journal.

Presidential staff formed a tight shell around Biden, 82, just after he took office amid the COVID-19 pandemic, with staff immediately limiting his personal interactions in January 2021.

But staffers also began making adjustments to daily plans when the president seemed tired or kept stumbling on the world stage — both figuratively and literally.

In the spring of 2021, meetings were rescheduled to account for his “good days and bad days”.

According to the Journal, a national security official told an aide at the time, “He has good days and bad days, and today was a bad day, so we’ll address this tomorrow.”

Meetings were often scheduled for later in the day — a fact that was only revealed after Biden’s debate flop against President-elect Donald Trump, when staff admitted that the then-Democratic candidate had difficulty functioning outside of a six-hour window that closed around

Once inside the room with the president, the officials were asked to keep their briefings short and to the point. Private discussions with even some of his top cabinet picks, including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, became more rare.

One official eventually stopped reaching out to schedule talks with the commander in chief after being repeatedly rebuffed, an ex-aide revealed.

The White House also hired a voice coach, Hollywood mogul and campaign chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg, to try to improve his weak, raspy tone.

Other staffers removed negative reports from Biden’s stack of news for the day, misleading him about public opinion of his job performance — which hit a 70-year low in 2024.

Deputy press secretary Andrew Bates disputed the characterization of his boss.

“President Biden speaks with members of his Cabinet daily and with most members several times a week, staying closely with them on implementing key laws and strengthening our national security,” Bates said in a statement.

“President Biden leads a modern administration. Cabinet meetings are an important tradition, but today’s work environment means they can be few and far between.”

But the signs had been there throughout his tenure in the Oval Office: He often relied on notecards, was seen with large instructions printed for him, often mixed up the names of foreign dignitaries or other facts, and vented when he went off script or ignored his teleprompter.

The president’s meeting with special counsel Robert Hur about what was later deemed his “intentional” withholding of classified documents also tested his mental stamina.

Biden was the one who reportedly pushed for the Hur interview, according to the WSJ, and staffers supported the decision in hopes of showing that Biden was more cooperative than Trump, then his 2024 presidential opponent.

But interview preparation quickly turned into a headache. Preparation sessions took three hours a day, and Biden would forget his “lines” and fluctuate in his energy level, according to the outlet. A transcript released after the grueling two-day affair in October 2023 revealed he forgot the year his son Beau Biden died of brain cancer.

A Bidenworld source dismissed the president’s nebulous recall, telling The Post, “Every person who has ever prepared for a legal interview has forgotten some of the preparation.”

The ring around Biden was just as tight during his short and failed re-election campaign, when staffers asked so many questions that it surprised donors about their level of control.

The Democratic nominee previously had his numbers filled out by pollster John Anzalone during his successful 2020 campaign, but in 2024, no survey results were released directly to Biden and were instead relayed through memos to campaign aides.

The withholding of the information particularly concerned the Biden campaign investigations as Trump’s numbers began to tick up.

Campaign staff also worried that first lady Jill Biden would outshine the president, even in the 2020 primary, according to the Journal.

“The more you talk about her, the more you make him look bad,” her press secretary at the time, Michael LaRosa, told the outlet that he was directed by Jill’s closest confidant, White House staffer Anthony Bernal.

During her husband’s tenure, the first lady even tried to prevent him from going alone for too long at press conferences, fearing he would be caught flat-footed by questions as events dragged on.

“President Biden has achieved the most accomplished record of any modern commander-in-chief and rebuilt the middle class because of his attention to policy details that affect millions of lives, his active solicitation of diverse opinions from outside experts, ordinary Americans, members of Congress and other elected officials , his cabinet and historians, and because of his determination to fulfill an overarching economic agenda that realized major priorities Democrats have been working toward for decades,” Bates added in a statement to The Post.

“During every presidency, there are inevitably some in Washington who don’t get as much time with who the president is as they would prefer; but that never means the president doesn’t engage thoroughly with others, as this president does.”