WSJ Story About Biden 'Slipping' Is Hot Topic in DC

One of the stories causing the biggest kerfuffle in DC this week is a 3,000-word piece in the Wall Street Journal whose headline provides the gist: "Behind Closed Doors, Biden Shows Signs of Slipping." It's based on interviews with more than 45 people over a span of several months, and it has Democrats firing back that it's a biased and inaccurate hit piece.

• On the record: The only person who goes on the record questioning the 81-year-old president's acuity in the story is former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. "I used to meet with him when he was vice president," he says. "I'd go to his house. He's not the same person."
• Examples: The story asserts that Biden routinely uses notecards to read obvious points at bipartisan meetings, speaks so softly it can be difficult to hear him, and sometimes gets his administration's policies wrong. In one example of the latter, Biden reportedly misstated in a conversation with House Speaker Mike Johnson that a major energy policy change was merely a study. "Johnson worried the president's memory had slipped about the details of his own policy," the story says, quoting people present. It also ticks off examples of Biden jumbling up facts in public, though it balances that with examples of Donald Trump doing the same.

• Or not? As for the above example of Biden calling the policy change a study, Politico notes that the "administration has routinely used that terminology before." And it notes that several Democratic lawmakers, including Sen. Patty Murray and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have complained that their on-the-record rebuttals to the newspaper's assessment were not included. Meanwhile, several Republican senators, including Mitt Romney and Thom Tillis, rejected the worrying portrayal of Biden, as did figures such as Joe Scarborough on his Morning Joe program.
• Pushback: "Complete and utter editorial fail by the @wsj," White House communications director Ben LaBolt tweeted. "Makes you wonder who they're taking orders from." It's a not-so-subtle reference to the newspaper's owner, Rupert Murdoch. Amid the pushback, the Journal tells the Hill that it stands by its reporting.

(More President Biden stories.)