Biden Undergoes Health Exam at Walter Reed as Mental Fitness Questioned

President Joe Biden walks out of the White House before boarding the Marine One presidential helicopter, on Feb. 28, 2024. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

President Joe Biden departed the White House on Wednesday, heading to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for a medical check-up amid public doubts about his age and mental fitness.

“I’m going to Walter Reed to get my physical,” President Biden told members of the press before boarding the Marine One presidential helicopter, just after 9 a.m. on Wednesday. The president’s routinely updated daily schedule made no mention of the Wednesday medical check-up before his departure, and his helicopter ride came as a surprise to the White House press pool.

Minutes after the president’s helicopter departed, the White House published a formal notice that the president was off for his “routine annual physical,” a summary of which the White House said would be released later on Wednesday. The findings from this medical examination are likely to be closely watched as the 81-year-old president heads into an election year seeking another four-year term.

The medical check-up comes three weeks after Special Counsel Robert Hur closed his investigation into President Biden’s handling of classified documents. Mr. Hur concluded that there was evidence President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified information earlier in his political career. However, he declined to press any charges, stating that the president’s advanced age and “poor memory” could create reasonable doubt among jurors tasked with assessing the intentionality behind the president’s handling of the documents.

Mr. Hur’s 388-page investigative report claimed that during an investigative interview, President Biden couldn’t accurately recall key biographical details about his life, such as the years his term as vice president began and ended, nor could the president recall “even within several years” when his son Beau had died.

President Biden and his allies had contended with doubts about his health even before Mr. Hur’s report was released. President Biden held a press conference on the same day Mr. Hur’s findings were made public, insisting, “My memory is fine.“ Later, during that same press conference, he appeared to mix up the leaders of Mexico and Egypt, referring to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi as the ”president of Mexico.”

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Mr. Hur’s findings have continued to expose President Biden to criticism and doubt about his continued fitness to hold office.

An ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted over the two days immediately after the release of the special counsel’s report found that 86 percent of respondents felt President Biden is too old to serve in office. Sixty-two percent of respondents in that same poll expressed similar concerns about President Biden’s leading Republican 2024 challenger, former President Donald Trump, who will be 78 years old in June.

In the days following the report’s release, 83 Congressional Republicans signed a letter calling for the president to take “a clinically validated cognitive screening assessment and make those results available to the public.” The Republican lawmakers also pressed President Biden’s cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to seize control of the presidency if President Biden cannot demonstrate his mental fitness.

Testing of memory and cognitive skills is not usually part of routine physicals like the one President Biden announced on Wednesday. It remains to be seen if the president’s check-up will include any cognitive screening.

NTD News reached out to the White House for more details about his visit to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center but did not receive a response by press time.

In addition to calls for cognitive screening, congressional Republicans have asked for a chance to look more closely at Mr. Hur’s past interview with the president. On Tuesday, the Republican-led House Oversight, Judiciary, and Ways and Means Committees subpoenaed the U.S. Department of Justice for Mr. Hur’s investigative files.

Biden’s Medical History

Details released from President Biden’s last physical showed that he had a lesion removed from his chest over the past year. Otherwise, the results largely mirrored the findings from a previous exam in November 2021. The 2021 report attributed the president’s occasional coughing to acid reflux and concluded that his stiffened gait resulted from spinal arthritis, a previously broken foot, and neuropathy in his feet.

Last summer, the White House announced the president had begun using a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine at night to help with sleep apnea. The also president had a colonoscopy in 2021, during which a 3-millimeter “benign-appearing polyp” was identified and removed.

In 1988, then-Senator Biden had surgery to repair two brain aneurysms, one of which was leaking. Subsequent examinations have not revealed evidence of recurrences.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

From NTD News