Former CNN political analyst Chris Cillizza said on Monday a plausible reason for President Joe Biden’s unwillingness to take a cognitive test is that he and his team are afraid of what the results could be.
Biden seemed to express an unwillingness to take a cognitive test during his interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, asserting that he undergoes “a cognitive test everyday.” Cillizza said on his YouTube channel taking the test would benefit Biden politically if it showed he is mentally fit, but it’s likely there is “fear” about what the test may demonstrate. (RELATED: Biden’s Debate Night Was Bad — His Tuesday May Have Been Even Worse)
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Ex-CNN Analyst Says Biden Likely Not Taking Cognitive Test Because Of ‘Fear’ Over What It ‘Might Find’ pic.twitter.com/7zYKETvhVe
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“I’m talking from a political survival perspective, would it make sense for Joe Biden to do a cognitive test? 100% absolutely yes,” Cillizza said. “I think that it would reassure people that there’s not anything more going on. It would help bolster his ‘it was one bad night’ regarding the debate argument. I think it would show people that he’s open and transparent in a way that I’ll say that Donald Trump really has not been. Yes, Donald Trump has apparently taken a cognitive test. He passed, he says he aced it. I don’t know what that means, but he apparently passed this cognitive test, this Montreal Cognitive Test.”
“I really do think it would behoove Biden to do it. Now why won’t he do it? Well, the kindest answer I can think of was, he won’t do it because he doesn’t think he needs it,” he added. “The doctors are saying he doesn’t need it, and he just doesn’t sort of want that distraction out there. The less kind answer, and the one I would really worry about if I was a Democratic elected official or a Democratic voter, is he’s worried that it might reveal something. That if he did do a cognitive test, it might reveal that he has some sort of illness or condition that might cause people to reassess whether he should be the presidential nominee, right?”
Biden has faced high-profile calls to withdraw from the presidential race since his debate with former President Donald Trump on June 27, during which the president froze and spoke with a raspy voice.
“Now I don’t know which of those it is. They obviously have a reason they don’t want to do it,” Cillizza added. “The simplest thing honestly would be for him to say, ‘Look, I took a cognitive test and here are the results.’ Now again, that’s great if the results are he passed and he’s totally fine. It’s much more problematic if the results are he didn’t pass or he had questions, or they need to do further testing, right?”
“So, I don’t know which of those it is. Honestly, I lean toward the fear what a test might find and that’s why they’re not doing it. But I do think if he did announce, ‘Yes, I’m doing this test’ or ‘Yes, I’ve done this test and this is what it showed,’ particularly if it showed that nothing was wrong, it would, one, help put to bed talk that there’s some underlying condition here, that this is a deterioration caused by an illness as opposed to one bad night,” the former CNN analyst said. “And two, I think it would put the onus back on Trump.”
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