During the New Year’s Eve edition of Newsmax TV’s "Special Report," political commentator and Newsmax contributor Mark Halperin described 2024’s true lie of the year: the media coverup of President Biden’s mental decline.
The mainstream press "aren’t acknowledging their role in the coverup. They’re not acknowledging that they pretended the story wasn’t happening on C-SPAN right before everybody’s eyes," he told Newsmax TV.
"And all of a sudden it’s safe for them to say, 'we kinda' missed this story, it should have been covered more.' I continue to say this is one of the biggest scandals in media history — maybe the biggest in America."
This didn’t just happen recently.
Halperin said he noticed the decline as far back as 2017, "and it was a friendly interviewer promoting a book, and afterwards a said 'thank goodness his career in public life is over.'"
And why is it "all of a sudden" "safe" to acknowledge Biden’s growing decline — something America and the world has witnessed for years?
Because the election is over, and in 17 days a new president — a competent one — will be sworn into office.
Prior to Nov. 5 a "special election" to replace Biden wasn’t available. The only remedy was the 25th Amendment — declare him incapacitated and replace with the vice president.
But if the 2024 election season proved anything, it’s that Vice President Kamala Harris was less qualified for the office than Biden, despite his cognitive issues. It confirmed what America had believed for at least four years — that she’s not a serious person.
So the White House promoted the lie that Biden was "on his game" at every opportunity, and the legacy media dutifully fell right in line.
Not only was Biden’s mental acuity the "Lie of the Year," but it became the longest running lie. Anyone who disputed his mental capacity became a conspiracy theorist in an era of conspiracies that eventually proved to be true.
Such "conspiracies" included:
- Noncitizens were casting votes in federal elections
- A Wuhan, China lab leak caused the COVID-19 pandemic
- The southern border was wide open
- FBI informants participated in the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot
- Hunter Biden’s laptop was real
- Masks and social distancing were effective against COVID-19
- The mRNA vaccines were both effective and safe against COVID-19
- Dr. Anthony Fauci funded Chinese gain-of-function research
- Biden would eventually pardon his son Hunter
Each one of these "conspiracies" later proved to be accurate — just like the "conspiracy" that Biden’s mental capacity was in decline.
The truth about Biden’s mental issues began to unravel when U.S. Special Counsel Robert Hur released a 345-page report over his legal culpability for retaining and mishandling classified documents he came into possession of as senator and vice president.
Hur reported that although Biden was likely criminally culpable for these acts, he recommended against prosecution because Biden would be seen by a jury as a "well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory."
Conservative political commentators concluded that if Biden is too mentally incompetent to stand trial, he’s also mentally unfit to hold office.
Conversely, if he’s fit to hold office, he’s also fit to stand trial.
Commentator Benny Johnson said, "Federal government declares Biden mentally unfit for office, senile in damning report,"
PolitiFact, a fact-checking organization, struck back.
It stated, "These characterizations are inaccurate."
Some conservatives came to accept PolitiFact’s assessments — especially after 2013, the year it declared then-President Barack Obama as delivering their "Lie of the Year."
Obama repeatedly claimed, in reference to Obamacare, that "If you like your [insurance] plan, you can keep your plan."
That, of course, was a lie.
Given repeated claims by White House officials and legacy media that Biden was mentally "fit as a fiddle" and "sharp as a tack," that should probably have been PolitiFact’s "Lie of the Year" for 2024.
But it wasn’t.
"In a year of inflammatory rhetoric and shocking moments, one repeated falsehood resonated with both PolitiFact journalists and readers as the most significant falsehood of 2024," the fact-checking organization said.
"Our 2024 Lie of the Year goes to Donald Trump and JD Vance’s outrageous claims that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating cats and dogs."
But it wasn’t a lie — they were merely repeating what had been reported by Springfield residents. So if we can’t trust the fact-checkers, who can we trust?
We have to trust the same sources we placed our faith in before the fact-checkers.
We have to trust our own eyes, ears, and power of reason.
In 17 days we can begin to trust the new administration, but never completely.
"Trust but verify."
And we can never, ever trust mainstream, legacy media again.
Remember 2024’s true "Lie of the Year."
Michael Dorstewitz is a retired lawyer and has been a frequent contributor to Newsmax. He is also a former U.S. Merchant Marine officer and a Second Amendment supporter. Read Michael Dorstewitz's Reports — More Here.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.