Biden at 81: Often sharp and focused but sometimes confused and forgetful

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden's conduct behind closed doors, in the Oval Office, on Air Force One and in meetings around the world is described in the same dual way by those who regularly see him in action.

He is often sharp and focused. But he also has moments, particularly later in the evening, when his thoughts seem jumbled and he trails off mid-sentence or seems confused.

Biden’s occasional struggles with focus may not be unusual for someone his age. But at 81 years old and seeking another four years in the White House, the moments when he’s off his game have taken on a fresh resonance following his disastrous debate performance against Republican Donald Trump.

The June 27 faceoff alarmed Democrats and his financial backers in part because Biden seemed so much worse than during the almost routine moments when he’s less sharp. And that has raised questions about whether he’s up for a campaign that’s only going to get nastier and whether he can effectively govern for another four years if he wins.

“We understand the concerns. We get it,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said this week. But she insisted Biden has no intention of stepping away from the campaign.

This story is based on interviews with two dozen people who have spent time with the president privately, some of whom were granted anonymity to discuss interactions that were not intended to be public.

The way Biden acts in private, according to regular observers, often tracks how he comes off publicly. In both settings, he can be commanding one day and halting another.

A day after his debate blunder, Biden's voice at a North Carolina rally was forceful, his eyes alert, his delivery confident. As he spoke, cheers filled the room.

“I give you my word as a Biden. I would not be running again if I didn’t believe with all my heart and soul I can do this job,” he told supporters. “Because, quite frankly, the stakes are too high.”

Through it all, public concern about Biden's fitness for another four years has been persistent. In an August 2023 poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, fully 77% of U.S. adults said Biden was too old to be effective for four more years. Not only did 89% of Republicans say that, but so did 69% of Democrats.

Biden’s advisers have long been aggressively dismissive of questions about his age. But now they’re acknowledging that Biden’s slowdown is undeniable. The debate has forced the president to more frontally acknowledge the limitations of his age, when before he largely made light of it.

After internal discussion within the campaign, the White House on Tuesday announced a public blitz: Biden will sit for an interview Friday with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. The president added a trip to Wisconsin on Friday, and will head to Philadelphia on Sunday. And he will hold a press conference during the NATO summit in Washington next week.

Biden's allies worry that the next inevitable misstep — even if it’s not of the magnitude of his debate disaster — will resurrect voter concerns about the president’s fitness for office.

Three French officials who helped organize Biden’s visit to France earlier this month said their U.S. counterparts’ reactions to options offered for a state visit in Paris and D-Day commemorations in Normandy made them think the president’s health must be fragile.

After the Group of Seven summit in Italy, where Biden appeared pale and his movements slow, he flew across nine time zones to Los Angeles for a glitzy Hollywood fundraiser. One person who spoke with Biden at the event was struck by how tired the president had seemed during backstage conversations.

Many in the White House say the president is in command across both domestic issues and critical foreign policy problems.

“I have been with the president a number of times over the last 3 1/2 years on some of the most consequential kind of life, death or peace-type decisions,” said Brett McGurk, a senior National Security Council official who has worked for both Republican and Democratic administrations.

“And what I have seen time and again — repeatedly and consistently — from the first week of the administration until now — is a president who prepares for those engagements, who has very detailed and comprehensive briefs for those engagements, and then does the engagement, and then has very active follow up.”

Democrats so far have been largely unsatisfied with the explanations for Biden’s debate performance from White House staff, his campaign and the president himself. And there is a deeper frustration among some who feel like the president should have handled this much sooner, and he has put them in a difficult position by staying in the race.

Another problem for Democrats: With the focus so squarely on Biden, there has been less attention paid to Trump, whose debate performance was riddled with falsehoods about the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, Democrats’ views on abortion rights and his own revisionist comments about his response on a 2017 neo-Nazi rally.

Really, only Biden’s personal physician can answer questions about the president’s cognitive fitness — and given the level of public concern, he should do so, said aging researcher S. Jay Olshansky of the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Biden’s physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, deemed the president fit for duty after a February checkup that included a neurologic assessment. White House officials at the time said Biden wasn’t given a specific cognitive test because O’Connor and the neurologist decided he didn’t need one.

One bad appearance on TV isn’t enough to assess anyone’s cognitive ability, Olshansky stressed, “even for those of us that study aging for a living.”

Corbet reported from Paris. Associated Press Writers Seung Min Kim, Mary Clare Jalonick, Josh Boak, Matthew Lee and Lauran Neergaard in Washington contributed to this report.

FILE - President Joe Biden, from second left, and first lady Jill Biden, walk off stage at the endof a presidential debate with Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump June 27, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

FILE - President Joe Biden, speaks during a presidential debate hosted by CNN with Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump, June 27, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

FILE - President Joe Biden walks across the South Lawn of the White House as he talks with White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre May 2, 2024, in Washington, after returning from a trip to North Carolina. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)

FILE - President Joe Biden walks to Marine One for departure from the South Lawn of the White House, April 5, 2024, in Washington. Biden is headed to Maryland. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

FILE - President Joe Biden walks off stage after speaking at the IBEW Construction and Maintenance Conference, April 19, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

FILE - President Joe Biden, from left, walks with White House deputy chief of staff Annie Tomasini, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, White House deputy chief of staff Bruce Reed and White House communications director Ben LaBolt, as they cross the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, April 26, 2024, after returning from a trip to New York. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

FILE - President Joe Biden, center, walks with Morehouse College alumni Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., left, and Rep. Sanford Bishop, D-Ga., upon arriving at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, May 18, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

FILE - From left, Maisy Biden, Naomi Biden, President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden walk to depart on Air Force One from Los Angeles International Airport, June 16, 2024, in Los Angeles. AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

FILE - President Joe Biden walks on stage to speak at a campaign rally, the day after the debate with Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump June 28, 2024, in Raleigh, N.C. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal judge presiding over the classified documents case against Donald Trump refused Saturday to throw out charges against a co-defendant of the former president.

Lawyers for Walt Nauta, Trump's personal valet, had asked U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to dismiss the indictment against their client. They argued, among other things, that Nauta was charged because of insufficient cooperation with prosecutors' investigation and because of a personal animus that they say prosecutors harbored against one of Nauta's attorneys.

Special counsel Jack Smith's team has denied all the claims, and Cannon in her four-page order Saturday said Nauta had not met the high bar required to get the case dismissed.

Nauta and another co-defendant, Mar-a-Lago property manager, Carlos De Oliveira, are accused of conspiring with Trump to conceal evidence from investigators as they sought to recover classified documents that were taken to the Palm Beach, Florida property after Trump's presidency ended.

All three men have pleaded not guilty.

No trial date has been set in the case. Trump has also sought to dismiss the case, and Cannon pointedly noted at the conclusion of her order: “This Order shall not be construed as commenting on the merits of Defendant Trump’s Motion to Dismiss the Indictment Based on Selective and Vindictive Prosecution or on any other motion pending before the Court.”

In this image from video provided by the U.S. Senate, Aileen M. Cannon speaks remotely during a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight nomination hearing on July 29, 2020, in Washington. Cannon, the federal judge presiding over the classified documents prosecution of Donald Trump, is hearing arguments Monday, June 24, 2024, on whether to bar the former president from public comments that prosecutors say could endanger the lives of FBI agents working on the case. (U.S. Senate via AP)