President Joe Biden is relying on cheat sheets to help him answer questions during private fundraising events with donors, people familiar with the routine told Axios.
Biden is using cheat sheets to help call on donors with pre-screened questions while also using the cards to help him provide an answer, people familiar with the routine told Axios. The reliance on the cheat sheets has reportedly raised concern among some donors about the 81-year-old’s ability to campaign or debate former President Donald Trump as he seeks a second term.
The cards are used in part because Biden’s staff wants to ensure that the events run smoothly, according to Axios. Though when Biden reportedly goes off-script and chooses to take questions on a whim, some donors have been impressed.
“He’s always been an extemporaneous speaker, and he spoke off-the-cuff. Not scripted at all,” Fred D. Hochberg, a donor who participated in a fundraiser in New York, told Axios. “I asked him about immigration and the border, and he talked about what’s going on.”
U.S. President Joe Biden pulls a note card from his pocket as he speaks from the Treaty Room in the White House about the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan on April 14, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Andrew Harnik-Pool/Getty Images)
Biden’s fundraising events tend to be private and closed to the press, as reporters are ushered out of the program after the president gives an opening speech, Axios reported.
Advisors to the president told Axios that the president is only given the cheat sheets for highly comprehensive and technical questions, adding that the president frequently takes unplanned questions. The Biden campaign reportedly dismissed worries over the president’s use of the cards
Concerns around Biden’s fitness for office have circulated following a report from special counsel Robert Hur detailing the president’s handling of classified documents. Hur made several comments about Biden’s declining memory, adding that the president seemed to forget when his vice presidency began and ended and when his son Beau had died during an Oct. 8-9 interview with the special counsel. (RELATED: Biden, Not Special Counsel, Reportedly First Brought Up Son’s Death In Interview)
Hur’s report even mentioned that if the president were to appear before a jury, he would present himself as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
Ahead of the 2024 election, 76% of American voters are worried about Biden’s fitness, according to a Feb. 6 NBC poll. Of Democrats, 54% of Democrats voiced concerns about Biden’s fitness for president, the same poll showed.