(Headline USA) The former press secretary for first lady Jill Biden blasted the president’s inner circle for “shielding him” from the public, calling the reelection strategy a disaster.
“Everything looks and feels so choreographed, scripted and controlled that it doesn’t afford him the opportunities to show off his strengths—humor, empathy and compassion,” Michael LaRosa, who worked for the Biden White House from 2021 to 2022, told the New York Times.
The White House has kept a tight leash on Biden as he campaigns amid rising concerns about his mental acuity and age. However, the efforts to reduce his public gaffes have stripped him of his “superpower,” LaRosa said.
“Relatability is his superpower, but you can only relate to someone when their humanity is exposed. That means flaws, mistakes and everything else that comes with imperfection,” he added.
LaRosa isn’t the only former Biden staffer who has noticed a significant “change” in Biden’s campaigning.
Jay Carney, Biden’s former communications director during the Obama administration, admitted to the Times, “The biggest change has been his caution and precision about staying on script and sticking to the points he wants to make.”
The former staffer’s comments reflect the “simmering discontent” within the administration over the Biden campaign’s reelection strategy, according to the Times.
However, those concerned have learned to stay away from the issue, since the president’s age is the “radioactive nuclear rod of the Biden presidency” that “no one wants to touch despite the danger of leaving it unaddressed.”
And yet Biden’s slowing mental faculties are even more visible in private, the Times said.
“In private, Mr. Biden prepares for public appearances in advance with long meetings, turning a one-hour session into two hours, sometimes punctuated by meandering stories about long-dead senators,” the report states.
Concerns about Biden’s mental fitness are sure to be front and center in Thursday’s debate between the 81-year-old president and former President Donald Trump—assuming CNN allows Trump to raise them.
The left-leaning network has reportedly given the Republican hopeful a list of verboten topics, threatening to mute his mic if he brings any of them up, despite their possible relevance and public interest.
It is unclear that there are any such parameters being placed on Biden, who has been known to regularly lie and gaslight with impunity, dangerously suggesting that his predecessor is an existential threat to democracy while his own culpability in many far more egregious offenses remains unchecked.
PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE: There is a rumor that CNN may have given Trump's campaign a warning that Trump wasn't allowed to bring up certain topics. This might explain why pic.twitter.com/YVN6ic6XtM
— @amuse (@amuse) June 27, 2024
