Speaking to Fox News Digital after the disastrous (for President Joe Biden) debate on Thursday, June 27, between former President Donald Trump and President Biden, two doctors, Dr. Marc Siegel and Dr. Brett Osborn, noted that they were concerned about the cognitive health of President Biden. Particularly, they said that they were concerned with how the president failed to maintain anything resembling a “coherent narrative.”
The White House claimed that President Biden was simply off because he had a “cold” on the night of the debate, and so did less well than he otherwise would have, but many, if not most, Americans who watched the debate and saw President Biden’s sorry performance thought that the problem was cognitive in nature, not that he had a cold.
Dr. Brett Osborn seems to have thought so as well. A neurosurgeon from Florida who specializes in cognitive function, he told Fox News Digital, in an interview on Friday, June 28, that, in his professional opinion, he exhibited many symptoms of cognitive decline that add credibility to the questions about the president’s “leadership capacity.”
Dr. Osborn said, “President Biden’s performance in [Thursday] night’s debate reignited longstanding discussions about his cognitive abilities and his overall leadership capacity.” He continued, “Throughout the evening, Biden struggled to maintain a coherent narrative, often losing his train of thought mid-sentence, and providing vague, rambling and undecipherable answers to highly critical questions.”
He underscored the importance of those observations about President Biden’s behavior by noting that they relate to the elderly president’s “mental acuity,” which is important given the demands and importance of the jo. Dr. Osborn said, “His frequent pauses, stumbling over words and reliance on notes underscored concerns about his mental acuity.”
Then, adding that the various issues President Biden has seem to exhibit “decline” in his cognitive healthy, Dr. Osborn said, “His difficulty in articulating clear, concise responses and his apparent disorientation during the debate were seen by many – including his own constituents – as very troubling indicators of his overall health and an obvious decline in his cognitive function.” And, connecting that to the critical nature of the presidency, Dr. Osborn said, “President Biden lacks the mental sharpness required for the highest office in the land … especially amid [today’s] current national and international crises.”
Similarly, Dr. Marc Siegel said, “The debate is, in a way, a psychiatric or cognitive stress test.” He added that President Biden displayed “frequent disorientation” and had “problems with spontaneity or redirecting.” He further noted that, though he hadn’t been able to examine President Biden, it’s hard to accept at face value the claim that it all came down to a cold.
He said, “Even so, it’s hard to believe this is all from a cold. Either way, we need someone who is sharp despite a cold.” He then added that President Biden’s cognitive ability, not age, is the big issue for America, saying, “It is an issue of fitness, not of age. It is an issue of mental acuity, which is especially important if there is a crisis.”
Returning to the cold issue, he said, “None of the medications that he would be taking for a cold, except something that might make him drowsy, would be relevant here. And I don’t think they would give him something that would make him drowsy before a debate.” He added, “We’ve been watching this a long time. This is something progressive.”
Watch a collection of Biden’s worst debate moments put together by the Trump team here:
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