The potential that Joe Biden could end his 2024 presidential re-election bid—and even resign from office—due to his declining cognitive state is raising new concerns regarding when senior White House aides and Vice President Kamala Harris became aware of his health issues. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill say they intend to investigate if senior staff and Harris lied to the American people regarding the 81-year-old Democrat incumbent’s diminished mental capacity.
This past February, Harris slammed Department of Justice (DOJ) special counsel Robert Hur’s report noting Biden’s cognitive struggles. “As a former prosecutor, the comments that were made by that prosecutor: gratuitous, inaccurate and inappropriate,” she said, adding: “The way that the president’s demeanor in that report was characterized could not be more wrong on the facts, and clearly politically motivated, gratuitous.”
WHEN DID HARRIS KNOW?
The National Pulse analyzed Biden‘s public schedule to determine how often he and Harris met during their tenure. This gives some indication of the extent to which the Vice President would have been able to observe Biden’s mental decline. According to the public schedule, Harris has attended meetings and events with Joe Biden 417 times since February 2021.
Throughout their first year in office, Biden and Harris met 200 times, averaging 17 monthly meetings. In 2022, that number declined to 96 meetings, with an average of eight per month. Last year, the two had a similar number of meetings, with the total sitting at 92. However, according to the public schedule, the number of times Biden and Harris have met has plummeted throughout the first half of 2024. On average, they’ve held just five meetings together each month.
The number of interactions between the two implies it is implausible that Harris was not aware of Biden‘s diminished cognitive state. In addition, the sudden decline in the number of monthly meetings—beginning in June 2023—suggests that Biden’s health may have drastically declined around the same time.
