FIRST ON FOX: The White House would have to notify Congress when the president takes a drug that could alter his alertness, judgment or mood under a bill proposed Thursday by a Tennessee Republican.
“Joe Biden’s embarrassing outbursts of anger and incomprehensible speeches mirror the incalculable damage his policies have had on our nation,” Rep. Andy Ogles told Fox News Digital Thursday.
“Frequently slurred speech, abnormally long pauses and the inability to string together five words in a coherent sentence have put Biden’s mental and physical decline on full display,” he said. “It is unfair to the American people for the White House to be occupied by someone who is literally incapable of speaking.”
Ogles said his bill — the No Juicing Joe Act — came about because the White House “has refused” to test Biden’s cognitive abilities “because they know he will fail miserably.” Biden is scheduled to debate former President Trump, the GOP nominee, later this month.
BIDEN’S ‘PERPETUAL STATE OF CONFUSION’ ON FULL DISPLAY IN NORMANDY AMID RISING COGNITIVE QUESTIONS
“The president, whose office is the most powerful on earth, must be accountable to the people, and it’s Congress’s duty to ensure accountability,” Ogles said.
Presidents past have grappled with health issues that sometimes involve treatments with drugs affecting their behavior, Ogles noted, such as President John F. Kennedy’s treatment by Dr. Max Jacobson, known as “Doctor Feelgood,” and Woodrow Wilson’s post-stroke incapacitation, which led to the 21st Amendment.
In an emailed statement to Fox News Digital, White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said, “It’s telling that Republican officials are unable to stop announcing how intimidated they remain by President Biden’s State of the Union performance.
“But after losing every public and private negotiation with President Biden — and after seeing him succeed where they failed across the board, ranging from actually rebuilding America’s infrastructure to actually reducing violent crime to actually outcompeting China — it tracks that those same Republican officials mistake confidence for a drug.”
Last week, the Republican National Committee (RNC) research division posted several videos on X that appeared to show President Biden in “a perpetual state of confusion” following his recent speech in Normandy to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day.
The RNC research account, which is managed by former President Trump’s campaign and the RNC, rattled off several posts on X of the president in Normandy, with one video showing Biden bending down at one point, seeming to be uncertain whether it was time to sit down.
Questions about Biden’s mental acuity also circulated last week after The Wall Street Journal’s bombshell report that interviewed 45 lawmakers and administration officials about Biden’s mental performance.
Biden, 81, is the oldest person to hold the presidency and has faced skepticism from voters and Republican lawmakers about his ability to do his job. Many Republicans and even some Democrats said the president showed his age in private meetings.
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Most of the people interviewed by the outlet who were critical of Biden’s performance were Republicans, although some Democrats said the president showed his age in several exchanges. These interviewees participated in meetings with Biden or were briefed on them contemporaneously, including administration officials and other Democrats who did not express concerns about how the president handled the meetings.
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White House officials, however, dismissed many of the accounts from people who have met with the president or been briefed on those meetings, saying such criticisms were motivated by partisan politics.
Fox News Digital’s Landon Mion contributed to this report.
