I’ve Seen Joe Biden Up Close. Nobody Can Deny His Decline.

White Houses, for decades, have denied presidential illnesses: FDR’s polio; JFK’s Addisons; Reagan’s Alzheimer’s, and now, perhaps, Biden’s decline. The power of the American presidency is incompatible with human frailty; it’s something I have seen close up, twice.

Some 30 years ago I was dispatched by The Guardian to write a piece about Ronald Reagan. He was in London to deliver a speech and even though he had been out of office for five years it still felt like a plum assignment for a young reporter. He was an American president after all and his swarm of security and their long black limos dwarfed the narrow Bloomsbury streets.

The room was in thrall as he strode towards the podium. What followed I have never forgotten. It was 20 minutes of that world-famous baritone speaking words, lots of words, words that individually made sense and that I recognized, but words he had strung together that made absolutely no sense at all.

At first I assumed it was me. This must be such an important speech that I was somehow not smart enough to grasp it. I looked around for other audience reaction but no one caught my eye. I began to panic. What was I going to write? Why couldn’t I understand him? And then I listened and watched and realized it wasn’t me. Incredibly, for all the posse he had around him, for all the black cars blocking the street below, it was him. The American president wasn’t making sense!

I got back to the office with a written copy of the speech that one of his aides had handed out and which I duly wrote up. I also described the bewildering disconnect of what I heard and what he had been supposed to say. The editor slapped on a headline: “Has the Gipper Gone Gaga?” (Gaga is British slang for not making sense any more.) It was the days before social media. Nobody had a camera, much less a video of Reagan’s speech.

Shortly after, Reagan announced he was retiring from public duties: “I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life.”

Three months ago I had the honor of being invited to the White House. It was an afternoon tea for creators and Joe Biden arrived to speak to us. There’s no mistaking the electricity that surrounds an American president and his entourage, but once again, there was something off. This time I could see it. He walked with a stiff, hesitant gait, each step deliberate and labored.

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As he tried to turn around, his movements were slow and specific, almost as if he were caught in a frame-by-frame sequence. Each shift of his feet seemed to require immense effort, and his torso followed with a measured, painstaking precision. Despite the struggle, he managed to talk to everyone in the room, maintaining eye contact as he turned, ensuring no one felt left out of the conversation.

The change since I had last seen him in person was dramatic. I had met the Bidens on several occasions during his vice presidency. Once, at a lunch, hearing after I had become an American citizen only the week before, he interrupted the larger conversation to thank me “for coming over to our side.”

Another time, at the vice president’s residence, the Old Naval Observatory, he wrestled my younger son into a headlock. In the photos we are all laughing. Another time he gave my older son a full 15 minutes on how to stand for class president. It’s hard to imagine a more natural politician. It’s hard to see one more changed.

It’s not hard, however, to look online and match the Biden I saw to possible conditions, particularly the complex known as Parkinsonism–an umbrella term which includes Parkinson’s Disease and other neurological conditions.

MichaelJFox.org, the actor’s foundation which raises awareness and money to treat Parkinson’s Disease, points out that doctors can often initially diagnose a Parkinson’s patient simply by the way they move. According to the foundation, the main symptoms are “stiffness (rigidity)”; “slowness (bradykinesia): decrease in spontaneous and voluntary movement; may include slower walking, less arm swinging while walking, or decreased blinking or facial expression”; and “speech problems: speaking in a soft and monotone voice and sometimes slurring words or mumbling. Sometimes speech sounds breathy or hoarse. People with Parkinson's might slur words, mumble or trail off at the end of a sentence.”

Now The New York Times reports that a specialist in Parkinson’s disease from the Walter Reed Medical Center visited the White House eight times in eight months from last summer to this spring, consulting with the president’s doctor at least once. The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, strongly denied Monday that the president has Parkinson’s. “Has the president been treated for Parkinson’s? No. Is he being treated for Parkinson’s? No. He’s not. Is he taking medication for Parkinson’s? No,” she said.

Up close it was impossible not to notice the changes in our 81-year-old president. We can all see Biden is markedly older and has suffered a heartbreaking deterioration. His strange leaning, as if for support, on King Charles during his U.K. state visit; his middle-distance stare and frozen stance in the Juneteenth video when everyone else was dancing; his catastrophic performance during the 9 p.m. CNN debate.

Reagan, with his ever-youthful appearance thanks to dyed hair and horse-riding, managed to keep his illness hidden from public view until after his presidency, even in London at the speech I reported on. In contrast, certain diseases reveal their presence through unmistakable symptoms that are difficult to conceal, making the struggle evident to all who watch.

I am not a doctor. Even those of us who have seen him close up don’t know the president’s true medical diagnosis. But unlike Reagan’s, don’t let this be the decline that dare not speak its name.