Joe Biden's team reportedly has been working to hide the president's diminishing physical capabilities and mental decline pretty much from the start of his administration.
The Wall Street Journal on Thursday published an account, based on interviews with nearly 50 people, about how Biden, 82, has been handled during his time in the White House.
The newspaper said a "protective culture" was created to keep the president safe when he took office amid the COVID-19 pandemic and it "was never fully taken down, and his advanced age hardened it."
"To adapt the White House around the needs of a diminished leader, they told visitors to keep meetings focused. Interactions with senior Democratic lawmakers and some Cabinet members — including powerful secretaries such as Defense's Lloyd Austin and Treasury's Janet Yellen — were infrequent or grew less frequent. Some legislative leaders had a hard time getting the president's ear at key moments, including ahead of the U.S.'s disastrous pullout from Afghanistan," the Journal reported.
"Senior advisers were often put into roles that some administration officials and lawmakers thought Biden should occupy, with people such as national security adviser Jake Sullivan, senior counselor Steve Ricchetti, and National Economic Council head Lael Brainard and her predecessor frequently in the position of being go-betweens for the president."
Basically, there were "limits over who Biden spoke with, limits on what they said to him, and limits around the sources of information he consumed."
Negative news clippings were kept away from Biden, as were pollsters who saw the president trailing in the 2024 race before he stepped aside.
The Journal's report said Biden's "slide has been hard to overlook."
"While preparing last year for his interview with Robert K. Hur, the special counsel who investigated Biden's handling of classified documents, the president couldn't recall lines that his team discussed with him," the Journal reported.
"At events, aides often repeated instructions to him, such as where to enter or exit a stage, that would be obvious to the average person. Biden's team tapped campaign co-chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg, a Hollywood mogul, to find a voice coach to improve the president's fading warble."
In the spring of 2021, a national security official explained to another aide why a meeting needed to be rescheduled.
"He has good days and bad days, and today was a bad day so we're going to address this tomorrow," the former aide recalled the official saying.
Biden's team also worked to prevent Biden, an undisciplined public speaker, from making gaffes or missteps.
"The system put Biden at an unusual remove from Cabinet secretaries, the chairs of congressional committees and other high-ranking officials," the Journal reported. "It also insulated him from the scrutiny of the American public."
The team's approach seemed to work for Democrats and allies until June 27, when the president debated President-elect Donald Trump in Atlanta. That is when the effort to replace Biden atop the party's national ticket basically began due to his disastrous performance.