When was the last time you saw President Biden holding a press event at the Oval Office? Apparently, a reason for the president to avoid that historic setting is that it is hard to properly install a teleprompter there. “The most popular” American president, who is evidently failing both mentally and physically, is already having trouble reading from the teleprompter, yet this device remains a necessity to preserve some semblance of Biden’s verbal coherence.
The revelation was casually mentioned in a Politico report dedicated to a possible 2024 rematch between Biden and former President Donald Trump and published on Thursday. The report reads,
The White House has largely abandoned using the Oval Office for press events in part because it can’t be permanently equipped with a teleprompter; Biden aides prefer the fake White House stage built in the Old Executive Office Building next door for events, sacrificing some of the power of the historic backdrop in favor of an otherwise sterile room that was outfitted with an easily read teleprompter screen.
The report also mentioned the president’s “slower and shorter gait” that was a result of pain in the president’s foot, which he allegedly broke while “playing with his dog in late November 2020.” Politico was kind to put it this way, since back in 2020, the president injured himself by actually tripping on a bathmat following a shower and while pulling his German Shepherd Major’s tail, as Biden shared.
The Politico report also notes that some of the Democrats and even some of Biden’s allies have expressed concerns privately that the 79-year-old president may not be able to handle the rigors of another presidential campaign, which is expected to be much more demanding than the previous one.
“The outbreak of Covid” very conveniently “kept Biden in his Delaware home for much of the 2020 general election campaign, sparing him the wear and tear of relentless travel,” reminds the report.
Biden’s preferred “fake” White House setting, styled to look like the White House interior and featuring fake windows that display a digital view of the White House Rose Garden, according to media reports, was constructed during the renovation of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. The latter is located directly adjacent to the West Wing on the White House grounds, where the actual Oval Office is, and has been used for press events since early last summer, according to “fact-checkers” from PolitiFact.
The outlet noted that since the auditorium is bigger than the White House press room, “it’s better suited [for] some events,” such as “Biden’s remarks on the June jobs report, a bill signing, a meeting on Western wildfires, and Vice President Kamala Harris’ remarks on broadband.”
In September, the president was filmed receiving his third dose of the Pfizer Covid shot in this unusual set-up. That same month, Biden held a virtual Covid-19 summit with other world leaders. In early October, Biden used the auditorium for a meeting with business leaders.
The development was dubbed a “Truman show presidency” and drew a slew of criticism and mockery on social media. Stephen Miller, a former senior adviser to President Donald Trump, was one of the observers who apparently shot the bull’s eye.
“The reason Biden uses this bizarre virtual set for televised meetings — and not an actual room like East Room, Cabinet, Oval, Roosevelt, Sit Room, etc. — is because it allows him to read a script directly from a face-on monitor (& w/out teleprompter glass that can be seen on camera),” Miller suggested.
The White House Press Secretary addressed the use of the fake Oval Office setup in February. She said the events were moved there “because of Covid and because the president wasn’t going to travel as much and not as many people were going to come here [to the Oval Office].”
But even reading from the teleprompter is a challenge for Biden.
According to the New York Post,
“Biden’s challenges with teleprompters are numerous and well documented.
On Tuesday, during a speech in Alabama about US military aid to Ukraine, Biden said the US “made sure Russia had Javelins” and praised the successful “Hungarian” resistance to Russia’s invasion.
He said: “Just a few days ago, the Wall Street Journal quoted a young Hungarian fighter saying, ‘Without the Javelins, it would have been very hard to stop the enemy pushing ahead.’”
The day before, he referred to himself as Delaware’s first senator instead of its first president.
And he has repeatedly spoken about “President” Kamala Harris.”
Because of the president’s mental decline, his handlers have become overly protective of his interactions with the press, no matter how friendly.
So far in 2022, the president, who once blasted his predecessor’s lack of transparency, has only done one interview. The lucky journalist to speak with the president was NBC’s Lester Holt.
According to Towson University’s White House Transition Project, Biden did just 22 formal sit-downs during his first year in office. In comparison, Donald Trump did 92 and Barack Obama 156.
At the same time, according to a recent report, Biden is considering running for a second term in 2024 since he sees himself as the only candidate capable of beating Donald Trump should he decide to put his name on the ballot.
