‘Take That For What It’s Worth’: WSJ Reporter Says Credibility of Source In Biden Mental Fitness Article Is Questionable

Wall Street Journal congressional reporter Siobhan Hughes joined CNN Wednesday to discuss her bombshell story on President Joe Biden’s mental fitness, in which former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) figured prominently as a source that Biden is losing his faculties. When pressed Hughes noted that McCarthy’s motivations in how he discussed Biden’s mental fitness in the past were often “tactical” and called into question his credibility.

“Siobhan, thank you so much for being with us. This story obviously is making a lot of waves, as you know. The headline, ‘Behind closed doors, Biden showing signs of slipping.’ What does ‘slipping‘ mean? And is the picture that is painted here different from what voters are seeing in public?” began anchor Brianna Keilar.

“The picture that’s being painted here is one of a president who, behind closed doors, is very much the same as what you see in public somebody who has good days, good moments, but also bad days and bad moments,” Hughes replied, adding:

And the reason that’s significant is the White House position has been that if only you could see the president behind closed doors, if only you could see what we see. He’s absolutely sharp as a tack. And so this aims to find out, well, what is the president like behind closed doors. It’s what’s happening there different from what the public sees. And

the answer is not very much.

“You write that most of those who said that Biden performed poorly were Republicans, but you noted that some Democrats said that he showed his age in several exchanges. Not to repeat Brianna’s question, but I’m wondering what showed his age and entails, because there are several instances in the piece where different encounters can be read different ways, and people came away from meetings with different impressions of what happened. So I’m wondering how you navigated that in your reporting?” followed up Boris Sanchez.

“So it’s fair. That is very, very tricky terrain. But, we focused on three meetings in particular all over the course of the past year. And there were things like mumbling and speaking in such a low voice that people could only hear every other word or couldn’t understand what he was saying,” Hughes explained, adding:

This over reliance on note cards, using note cards to make what were very obvious points, and using them in ways that affected the spontaneity of the conversation. Having a loose command of the details.Things like in the Ukraine meeting we talked about in January of this year, using notecards to make the point that Ukraine aid needed to be on the table when everybody in that room, by and large, agreed that Ukrainian aid needed to pass. That wasn’t the question. The question is, how do we do this

quickly? And so it is the preponderance of the detail that we gathered that led to that headline.

“Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy went on the record with you guys for the story. He said, quote, ‘I used to meet with him when he was vice president. I’d go to his house. He’s not the same person.’ You also in the story mentioned some of the differing things that McCarthy has kind of said about Biden. So I wonder how you can kind of make heads or tails of that. It was reported, of course, by the New York Times and Politico last year that he would publicly skewer Biden, but then privately, he would tell his allies that he found Biden to be sharp in their meetings,” pressed Keilar.

Hughes replied, “So we heard from administration officials that McCarthy did say that the president was sharp in meetings. Our reporting also suggested that McCarthy was doing that tactically because he had to get along with President Biden at a time when the country was at really risk of a debt default if there was not some type of a deal. So you can take that for what it’s worth, you can decide McCarthy is not credible or that he is, but that’s what our reporting showed.”

Watch the clip above via CNN.