‘Reporters Were Present’: Team Biden Insists He Is Fine Because Media Ignored Decline Until Two Weeks Ago

President Joe Biden’s campaign is insisting that concerns about the 81-year-old’s fitness are overblown because the press previously ignored the decline until his presidential debate performance, according to The Washington Post.

Ahead of the debate, the White House denounced a viral video of the president freezing up at a fundraiser and being led off stage by former President Barack Obama, calling it a “cheap fake.” Now, attendees of that fundraiser, including George Clooney, are sounding the alarm on the president’s ability to serve and his decline the night of the event, according to The Washington Post. (RELATED: Obama World Is Circling Joe Biden Like A Wounded Gazelle)

But the president’s campaign staff are dismissing worried donors and allies, calling their comments “unfair” and “second-guessing,” according to The Washington Post.

“Several reporters were present for the President’s interview with Jimmy Kimmel at the L.A. fundraiser,” Lauren Hitt, a campaign spokesperson, told The Washington Post. “None of them reported out anything like this at the time.”

Attendees’ concerns began surfacing after Clooney wrote an op-ed in the New York Times calling for the president to drop out of the presidential race with his reasoning being what he witnessed at the fundraiser.

“In the last four years, he’s won many of the battles he’s faced,” Clooney wrote in a New York Times op-ed. “But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can. It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal‘ Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”

Hours later, David Axelrod, Obama’s chief campaign strategist, and Jon Favreau, an Obama speech writer, backed up Clooney’s account.

“It was not surprising to any of us who were at the fundraiser,” Favreau told CNN.

Attendees noticed the president’s decline before he took the stage at the fundraiser, six people present told The Washington Post. In a meet-and-greet line, Biden “seemed frail” and tripped over his words while making small talk, the six sources told the outlet. Some who were meeting the president for the first time told The Washington Post that they were “shocked” at Biden’s decline.

Other donors “struggled” to tell their friends the truth about Biden’s decline following the event, the Washington Post reported. During his opening remarks, the president trailed off or stumbled, causing Obama to interject and rescue Biden, according to The Washington Post.

“We were worried that if we told the truth — that President Biden was stiff, slow and dare we say it, fragile — that we risked losing their support for the president,” one donor told the outlet. “It was painful to be deceptive. Now, we realize we were not alone in withholding what we experienced.”

With the president’s political future in peril, the Biden campaign has rushed to set up public speaking opportunities, including a press conference at the NATO Summit. Though committing several damaging gaffes, the president managed to clear low expectations and deafen calls for him to step aside.