President Biden visited Walter Reed Medical Center on Wednesday morning for this 2024 physical ahead of what’s expected to be a brutal reelection fight and as questions about what’s clearly a slowing Biden from a physical and mental standpoint have exploded.
Instead of showing skepticism towards those in power, the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC channeled state-run media in places like China, North Korea, and Russia by trumpeting without question President Biden’s doctor saying he’s “fit for duty” with “no signs of trouble” neurologically.
ABC’s World News Tonight embarrassed itself on Wednesday. Anchor David Muir saw nothing to be worried about, boasting “the President’s doctors saying he is, ‘fit for duty’” even though “age has become an issue for some voters.”
Senior White House correspondent Selina Wang was similar obsequious, sharing Biden’s longtime doc Kevin O’Connor gave “him a clean bill of health, saying today’s exam found no new concerns” and specifically bragged the President’s “a healthy, robust 81-year-old male, who remains fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency.”
“Now, today’s exam did not include a mental fitness test. The White House saying the President’s doctors have determined he doesn’t need one. And, today, the White House telling me that the President proves his cognitive abilities every single day by doing his job,” she concluded.
ABC’s chief White House correspondent and lead Biden apple polisher Mary Bruce took the task on Thursday’s Good Morning America to boast Biden’s “doctor says the President is fit to serve” with “no new health concerns over the last year.” and no “mental fitness test” was done because O’Connor “didn't think it was necessary and the White House argues the President passes a cognitive test every day just by doing his job.”
What a contrast from 2018 when President Trump went for a physical conducted by then-White House physician and now Congressman Ronny Jackson (R-TX). Hold that thought.
NBC senior White House correspondent Gabe Gutierrez was on the case for both Wednesday’s NBC Nightly News and Thursday’s Today. On the former, he called the physical “a new reminder of another hurdle for the Biden campaign” with “voter concerns mount[ing] over his age, mental acuity, and physical fitness for office.”
But otherwise, Gutierrez went right along with the regime’s line Americans need to accept O’Connor’s terminology that Biden’s “fit for duty...without exceptions or accommodations” and that Biden claimed to reporters doctors “think I look too young.”
Instead of relay it himself, he played a comical clip of Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre insisting Biden “doesn’t need a cognitive test.”
Gutierrez’s Today half-segment should have earned him a pat on the head (click “expand”):
HODA KOTB: And, Gabe, there’s another big headline out there: President Biden received his annual physical yesterday. What were the takeaways there?
GUTIERREZ: Yeah, Hoda. President Biden was declared fit for duty and, overall, healthy by his doctor. The President telling reporters yesterday there is nothing different than last year. We did learn that Mr. Biden's gait has stiffened because of age-related wear and tear of his spine and also, he has started using a sleep apnea machine and had a root canal in June. In response to questions about his mental fitness following that special counsel report, the White House press secretary says his doctors do not think he needs a cognitive test, Hoda.
Pivoting to CBS, Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell had a eye-roll-inducing news brief and chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes did the same with a full segment on Thursday’s CBS Mornings (click “expand”):
O’DONNELL [on the CBS Evening News, 02/28/24]: And we are learning new details tonight from President Biden’s annual physical. The commander in chief’s doctor says the 81-year-old is “fit for duty.” The report said the oldest President to hold office is healthy, active, robust, and occasionally coughs due to acid reflux. It said his stiffened gait was the result of arthritis, a previously broken foot and neuropathy in his feet. Dr. Kevin O’Connor at Walter Reed noted the President still uses a CPAP machine to help with his sleep apnea, and he identified no new concerns.
(....)
CORDES [on CBS Mornings, 02/29/24]: What we know, Nate, is that Dr. O’Connor, the President’s doctor, said that the only change in the President’s health since last year is that he is now using a PAP machine to help with his sleep apnea. Otherwise, the doctor said the President is a healthy, active, robust 81- year-old. Now, this physical was conducted at the Walter Reed Medical Center yesterday. At least ten specialists we’re told, examined Biden. Dr. O’Connor said the President’s arthritis is moderate to severe, which causes him to walk with a stiffened gait that many have noticed. But the doctor said it isn’t any worse than last year and doesn’t require any additional treatment. Now one test, as you mentioned, that the President did not undergo was any kind of cognitive test. The White House press secretary told reporters that a neurologist determined that Mr. Biden did not need one. The bottom line in this three-page memo, Dr. O’Connor says that he has “no new concerns” about Biden’s health despite constant assertions by Biden’s political opponents about his health, Gayle.
GAYLE KING [on CBS Mornings, 02/29/24]: Nancy, are you hearing that people were surprised that he was not asked to take a cognitive test? Is that just no big deal now?
CORDES [on CBS Mornings, 02/29/24]: I think people were wondering about it, but apparently according to his personal doctor and a neurologist, they didn’t believe it was necessary, so he had a whole host of other tests and examinations, but that was something they didn’t feel they needed to look at. In fact, the White House press secretary says he gets a cognitive test every day in the Oval Office basically based on the job he does.
Thankfully, CBS Mornings co-hosts Tony Dokoupil and Gayle King scoffed at Jean-Pierre’s spin, both stating it’s “not quite the same” with Dokoupil adding that “[t]he American people...don’t have MDs, but they will evaluate that latter test” in November.
Returning to Trump and his 2018 physical, the liberal media beclowned themselves and were lampooned by patriots like our own Tim Graham and the late, great Rush Limbaugh.
CBS This Morning went down the rabbit hole prior to the visit, boasting on January 12, 2018 that Trump was having spend part of his presidency “defending his fitness for office” as “the oldest person ever to become command-in-chief”, implying something like Alzheimer’s could befall him.
Worse yet, CBS used that chance to reup the decades-long conspiracy theory that Reagan had Alzheimer’s while president.
In the press briefing after the exam, Jackson faced questions from the likes of ABC, Bloomberg, CBS, CNN, NBC, and The Washington Post in what we wrote at the time as “long knives...out as the liberal media engaged in their own Pickett’s Charge to save their narrative that Trump’s mentally ill and thus must be removed via Congress or the 25th Amendment.”
CBS’s Margaret Brennan went as far as to lobby for Trump be examined for Alzheimer’s while then-ABC correspondent Cecilia Vega demanded to know details about “cognitive tests” and whether he could truly rule out Alzheimer’s and dementia since “there have been reports the president has forgotten names, that he’s repeating himself.”
In addition to Comedy Central’s The Daily Show quipping “dictator blood” is keeping Trump afloat, ABC’s The View, CNN (here and here), and MSNBC’s Morning Joe discounted the readout from the physical all-together (as if to suggest it’s fake) and kept alive the suspicion Trump was mentally and/or physically impaired.
And, when Trump went to Walter Reed in November 2019, NBC was set ablaze with speculation, deeming it a “health exam mystery” in a chyron and claiming it could have had to do with his heart based on data from his 2018 physical.
To see the relevant transcripts from February 28, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS), and here (for NBC). To see the relevant transcripts from February 29, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS), and here (for NBC).
