Biden's Unexpected Departure From G7 Leaders Sparks Controversy

 A video of President Joe Biden peeling off from other Group of Seven world leaders Thursday has prompted widespread scrutiny, with Biden's critics arguing it's the latest example of the president looking aloof on the world stage, while the White House says Biden was actually walking over to talk to somebody—and notes some of the videos are selectively edited.

 

Video footage from a skydiving demonstration in G7 host country Italy shows Biden taking a few steps away from the other world leaders and giving a thumbs up to a nearby parachutist, as the rest of the group is focused on another parachutist.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni then taps Biden and directs him back to the group, where he slowly puts on his sunglasses and stands still.

Outlets like the New York Post and Trump’s allies have cast the video as the latest incident suggesting the 81-year-old president is slipping mentally.

The White House has hit back at the allegations, pointing out that the Post and some other critics shared clips that edit the parachutist Biden approached of the frame to make it look as if he wandered off from the group without explanation.

White House spokesperson Andrew Bates accused “Murdoch outlets” of being so “desperate to distract from [Biden’s] record that they just lie,” in response to a Friday New York Post cover that dubbed Biden “Meander In Chief” and accused him of “embarrass[ing]” the United States with “confused wanderings.”

The Post cover, which includes an image of Biden walking away from the group but does not show what he is walking towards, uses “an artificially narrow frame,” Bates said.

Some other Biden critics, however, shared videos that did show the parachutist Biden was walking toward, still casting it as an awkward moment for the president, including the Republican National Committee, which tweeted “WHAT IS BIDEN DOING?,” and Fox News host Sean Hannity, whose staff wrote on his website that Biden “appeared to wander off.”

In the case of the edited video, it wouldn’t be the first time Biden’s adversaries have stretched reality to leverage concerns about his age—a video of the president hovering over a chair for a few seconds before he sat down at last week’s D-Day ceremony in France was cut just before Biden actually takes a seat, with right-wing critics falsely claiming he attempted to sit in a “nonexistent” chair.

ormer President Donald Trump, who turned 78 on Friday, has also faced criticism for misstating facts and head-scratching asides in his speeches. Some CEOs who met with Trump Thursday at the powerful Business Roundtable lobbying group’s meeting in Washington, said he was “remarkably meandering…could not keep a straight thought” and “was all over the map,” New York Times financial columnist and co-anchor of CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Andrew Ross Sorkin said Friday on the network. Trump, perhaps aware he is just three years younger than Biden, has repeatedly said Biden isn’t too old to be president, but is “too incompetent.”

Biden’s penchant for public gaffes has come under heightened scrutiny amid concerns he is too old to serve as president. The president has struggled with a stutter for years and has a habit of telling far-fetched stories and making seemingly well-intentioned but ill-fated remarks, dating back to his time in the U.S. Senate, but a recent string of unflattering accounts about his mental fitness have dogged his re-election campaign. Special Counsel Robert Hur in February described Biden as a “well-meaning man with a poor memory” after interviewing him in his probe into Biden’s handling of classified documents. Hur noted in his report detailing the investigation that Biden’s lawyers had to remind him of key dates, including when his son, Beau Biden, died, throughout the interview. Biden has pushed back on Hur’s account. The Wall Street Journal also reported earlier this month that lawmakers who have met with Biden on Capitol Hill recently said his physical and mental state appears to have deteriorated, citing times when he spoke so softly it was hard to hear him, repeated himself in meetings and moved noticeably slowly around the room as he greeted attendees. Most of the criticism came from Republicans who spoke to the Journal under condition of anonymity, however.

“Congressional Republicans, foreign leaders and nonpartisan national-security experts have made clear in their own words that President Biden is a savvy and effective leader who has a deep record of legislative accomplishment,” Bates told the Journal in response to the report. “Now, in 2024, House Republicans are making false claims as a political tactic that flatly contradict previous statements made by themselves and their colleagues.”