Nearly every time President
Joe Biden appears in public these days, he fuels the chatter: Will aging Joe bow out of the 2024 race? Will he be forced to step aside?
In the latest incident, former president
Barack Obama was seen on Saturday reaching for Biden's hand and seemingly guiding the 81-year-old Commander-in-Chief off the stage at a
Los Angeles fundraiser.
And that came after Biden
stood motionless and stared blankly for a full minute at a Juneteenth celebration at the
White House on Monday, as others sang and danced around him. Eventually, Philonise Floyd, brother of the late
George Floyd, noticed Biden's concerning pause and wrapped his arm around him to help.
White House spokesperson Andrew Bates is denying that Biden froze in the viral video, calling it a 'cheap fake memo' being spewed by the media.
But it seems no matter how much cold water the Biden campaign or Democratic Party throw on this raging fire of speculation, Americans will not be put off the Great Joe Biden Replacement Theory.
It's the idea that somehow, some way the President will be swapped out as the
Democratic Party's candidate ahead of the 2024
election.
'Dropping out would be a big risk. But there's some threshold below which continuing to run is a bigger risk,' polling guru Nate Silver wrote on social media last week. 'Are we there yet? I don't know. But it's more than fair to ask.'
The questions came after a video on Sunday showed former President Barack Obama
walking Biden off the stage after the president appeared to freeze at a fundraiser. Another video from last week appeared to show Biden wandering off into the distance in Europe before Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni
turned him back to the group of world leaders watching a skydiving show.
Neither video was accurate, Jean-Pierre claimed, repeatedly avoiding questions about whether or not Biden is “fine.”
“Yeah. We, and I think you all have called this the ‘cheap fakes video,’ and that’s exactly what they are. They are cheap fakes video. … They are done in bad faith,” Jean-Pierre told reporters.
“Let’s not forget President Obama, President Biden, have a relationship. They are friends. They’re like family to each other, and I think that’s what you saw,” Jean-Pierre said of one video.
“Several recent fakes actually attacked the president for thanking troops,” Jean-Pierre referenced the video of Biden in Europe. “That is what they’re attacking the president for, both in Normandy, where this happened, and again in Italy.”
They were only 10 words but wow, did they spark a reaction.
I watched the viral clip of Barack Obama
taking a frozen Joe Biden by the arm and leading him off stage at their star-studded $30 million LA fundraiser, and posted on X what I suspect everyone who watched it was thinking: “So embarrassing. The Democrats can’t let this go on, surely?”
Within a few hours, a staggering 7.5 million people had viewed my post and many thousands of those had liked, reposted or commented on it.
As I thought, the vast majority shared my honestly held opinion that President Biden is no longer fit for the highest office in America.