Axios has just broken a story supposedly leaked by members of the Biden entourage or White House staff. Their intent was to explain Joe's poor debate performance. They say Biden is fine between 10 am and 4 pm, not so fine at other times.
Between the lines: Biden's miscues and limitations are more familiar inside the White House.
- The time of day is important as to which of the two Bidens will appear.
- From 10am to 4pm, Biden is dependably engaged — and many of his public events in front of cameras are held within those hours.
- Outside of that time range or while traveling abroad, Biden is more likely to have verbal miscues and become fatigued, aides told Axios.
- Thursday's 90-minute debate began at 9pm ET.
The New York Post also ran a column with much the same content.
The 81-year-old commander in chief is prone to absent-minded gaffes and fatigue outside of the hours of 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. or while traveling abroad, White House aides told Axios in a bizarre attempt to spin his disastrous debate performance.
During the 90-minute trainwreck of a presidential debate — which kicked off five hours after the president’s peak performance window, at 9 p.m. — Biden often appeared vacant or slack-jawed, and on several occasions froze mid-thought, misspoke, or struggled to form coherent sentences.
Like the authors of these columns I am no psychiatrist, and I suppose they worry about lawsuits. Nevertheless the elephant in the room is that both columns describe quite accurately something called "sundowners syndrome" without ever using its name. I suggest you explore that term using your search engine and draw your own conclusions.
Personal aside: In our experience with older friends who've passed through a sundowners phase, it was a way-station en route to memory care.
