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72% of Voters Say Biden Is Not Fit for Office

July 1, 2024

Almost three-quarters of American voters say that President Joe Biden is not mentally fit to be commander-in-chief, according to a stunning new poll released Sunday.

The CBS News/YouGov survey was conducted in the days following the first presidential debate last week, which both Republican and Democratic observers agreed was disastrous for Biden as he often appeared confused, mumbled hoarsely and incoherently, and made nonsensical and false statements. The poll found that 72% of registered voters believe that Biden does not have the “mental and cognitive health to serve as president,” with just 27% of voters indicating that he does. The numbers signal a dramatic drop in support for the president from just two weeks ago, when 65% of voters said Biden “does not” have presidential capacity and 35% saying he “does.”

The fallout from Biden’s debate performance has continued to send reverberations through the country as more details emerge about how the 81-year-old president’s inner circle attempts to shield him from scrutiny. A recent Axios report has noted that his staff schedules almost all of his public appearances between the hours of 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. “Outside of that time range or while traveling abroad, Biden is more likely to have verbal miscues and become fatigued,” aides reportedly told Axios. Other actions taken by his staff include shortening the stairs of Air Force One and having aides walk with Biden during his walks across the South Lawn to Marine One in order to draw attention away from his “halting and stiff gait.”

Even before the June 27 debate in Atlanta, a flurry of video clips of Biden appearing frail and confused have been widely distributed on the internet. One video showed the president aimlessly wandering away from a group of world leaders at the G-7 summit in Italy in mid-June, before being led back by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Another a week later showed Biden freezing in place with clenched fists following a fundraising event in Hollywood, before former President Barack Obama led him away by hand. At a Juneteenth event at the White House, the president appeared frozen for almost a full minute during a performance and also slurred his words during a speech at the same event.

Directly following the debate, as Biden walked haltingly and gingerly off the stage, he had to be helped down a small step by First Lady Jill Biden.

Former Biden staffers are now increasingly going public with concerns about his health and his ability to perform the demanding duties of the leader of the free world. “I know many of these people and how the White House operates,” said Chandler West, the Biden White House’s former deputy director of photography. “They will say he has a ‘cold’ or just experienced a ‘bad night,’ but for weeks and months, in private, they have all said what we saw last night — Joe is not as strong as he was just a couple of years ago. The debate was not the first bad day, and it’s not gonna be the last. It’s time for Joe to go.”

Meanwhile, Republicans have gone a step further in their analysis of how Biden’s inner circle is treating the president, who will turn 82 in November and suffers from “spinal arthritis,” “mild sensory peripheral neuropathy of the feet,” and other undisclosed conditions. “What Jill Biden and the Biden campaign did to Joe Biden tonight — rolling him out on stage to engage in a battle of wits while unarmed — is elder abuse, plain and simple,” wrote Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.) following last week’s debate.

President Biden’s approval rating has been consistently falling since the beginning of his term, but the commander-in-chief has reached a new low with this latest CBS News poll.

“Rarely do you see 72% of Americans agreeing on anything,” FRC Action Director Matt Carpenter told The Washington Stand. “So, for CBS to publish data showing 72% of Americans do not think President Biden has the mental and cognitive abilities to serve as president is shocking. If a supermajority of Americans doubts President Biden’s ability to serves in his current role as president, they are certainly not going to reward him with a second term in office.”

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.