During an interview, Stacey Abrams, a Georgia gubernatorial contender, was caught on camera chuckling after a podcaster said Joe Biden had Alzheimer’s illness.
When podcast presenter Karlous Miller remarked on the 79-year-old president’s forgetfulness and implied it was due to dementia, the Democrat was defending Biden’s ‘vision’ on the 85 South Show.
‘Biden had a dream.’ ‘He’s talked about how he envisions that future,’ Abrams added.
‘Biden had a vision. He has talked about what that vision looks like,’ Abrams said.
‘He forgot it though,’ Miller interrupted. ‘His Alzheimer’s kicked in.’
The former Georgia state representative laughed and seemingly tried to contradict the statement when Miller added: ‘You didn’t see him? He was talking the other day he turned around and there was nobody back there.
‘He was like “I’ll be damned, I’ll be damned. I thought somebody was behind me.”‘
Abrams didn’t comment on Miller’s remark and instead redirected the conversation back to politics.
Biden has faced criticisms since the start of his presidency about his cognitive competency, and is the oldest US president in history.
Many claims were lobbed at Biden by Donald Trump during their election contest, although 75 year-old Trump has himself faced claims about his own cognitive health.
Last month the 46th president, while finishing a speech about the nation’s ongoing supply chain crisis, turned around and stuck his hand out as if to shake hands and then turned his back on the main audience before wandering off stage.
The 79-year-old president had earlier claimed that he had served as a ‘full professor’ at the University of Pennsylvania despite never teaching a class at the school, in yet another gaffe that has Republicans questioning Biden’s cognitive abilities.
Earlier in April, Biden looked disoriented during an event that saw former President Barack Obama visit the White House for the first time since leaving office.
During his State of the Union address in March Biden had a gaffe during his speech amid the crisis in Ukraine, confusing the nation facing invasion with Iran.
Biden, the oldest man ever elected to the presidency in the United States, was speaking about the ongoing Russian invasion when he erred.
‘Putin may circle Kiev with tanks, but he’ll never gain the hearts and souls of the Iranian people,’ Biden said.
Just after he finished saying ‘Iranian,’ Vice President Kamala Harris was seen behind Biden mouthing the correct word, ‘Ukrainian.’
In February, more than three dozen House Republicans demanded Biden submit to a cognitive test and outlined their concerns about his fitness for office in a searing letter.
Thirty-seven GOP lawmakers signed onto the letter, written by former White House physician Rep. Ronny Jackson, and cited examples of the 79-year-old’s ‘mental decline’ including forgetting numbers and names and hot mic moments.
‘The American people should have absolute confidence in their President. They deserve to know that he or she can perform the duties of Head of State and Commander-in-Chief,’ the letter stated.
‘They deserve full transparency on the mental capabilities of their highest elected leader. To achieve this, we urge you to submit to a cognitive test immediately.’
Jackson penned a similar letter last June that did not appear to receive a public reply from the White House.
The House Republicans’ letter cited instances of the president forgetting the names of senior Cabinet officials, misreading clearly-marked figures and even suggested Biden has shown symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease.
‘The Alzheimer’s Association lists “changes in mood and personality,” including being more “easily upset” as one of ten signs of mental decline,’ Jackson wrote in the letter.
‘You displayed this type of mood change during a cabinet meeting on January 24, 2022, when you apparently did not know your microphone was on after finishing your opening remarks, and you called a White House reporter a “stupid son of a b****”in response to a question asked on inflation.’
He was referring to a hot mic moment during which Biden called Fox News reporter Peter Doocy a ‘stupid son of a b****’, after which the president personally apologized to the journalist.
Biden has also been slammed by foreign nations over his apparent forgetfulness.
A Saudi TV outlet made fun of Biden in April with a television sketch that portrays him as doddering and forgetful, which has since gone viral.
The SNL-style skit comes from the show ‘Studio 22’, and features Harris played by a man in drag who has to guide Biden to the podium and help him when he loses his train of thought.
The one minute clip has Biden wandering off stage, forgetting the name of the Russian president, falling asleep mid-sentence and calling his Vice President ‘First Lady’.
‘Listen to me,’ the president says. ‘I have a very important message for you. The message is…’
And he falls asleep.
‘We’re going to talk about the crisis in Africa,’ the Biden says. Harris has to correct him once again, bringing him back on course to discuss Russia.
It ends with the vice president holding up a sleeping Joe Biden and demanding that the audience ‘clap for your president right now’.
In March, Moscow accused Biden of hurling ‘personal insults’ at Vladimir Putin fueled by ‘irritation, fatigue and forgetfulness,’ after the president called the Russian leader a ‘murderous dictator’ and a ‘thug’ over his brutal invasion of Ukraine.
The Kremlin’s commentary came after Biden turned up the heat of his anti-Putin rhetoric, calling the Russian strongman a ‘murderous dictator, a pure thug who is waging an immoral war against the people of Ukraine’.
‘And Putin is paying a big price for his aggression, and they are part of the reason the cost is going so high,’ Biden added, in reference to sanctions placed on Russia.
Biden ramped up his attacks on the Russian leader after Putin sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine.