Biden’s team seethes over another age piece — and sours on The Journal

For much of Joe Biden's time in office, the White House has held The Wall Street Journal’s news operation in high regard.

The paper’s reporters have often been selected to ask questions at Biden’s press conferences. The White House has regularly worked with them privately on stories. And the press shop grew to appreciate The Journal’s unvarnished and dry approach to coverage, having grown annoyed at The Washington Post’s inclination to run “tick tock” stories and, what they felt was, The New York Times’ obsession with the subject of the president’s age.

But that relationship is now under serious strain following The Journal’s own publication of a lengthy story on the president’s health and mental acuity.

That story, based on what the paper said were more than 45 interviews over several months, cast Biden as discursive and distracted, mumbling and non-attentive. It presented anecdotes in which the president would read from notecards in meetings with lawmakers, speak in hushed tones and seemingly stumble over his own administration’s policies.

Inside the West Wing, staff interpreted the piece as a sign that the paper was reverting to partisan form ahead of the November election. There was some speculation that the paper’s owner, Rupert Murdoch, was showing his preference for a Donald Trump victory, according to two people familiar with the communications team’s thinking.

“Complete and utter editorial fail by the @wsj,” White House communications director Ben LaBolt posted on X. “Makes you wonder who they’re taking orders from.”

A spokesperson for The Journal said that the paper stands by its reporting.

While much of the paper’s portrayal of Biden is evidenced in his own public appearances, the item drew intense, immediate pushback, largely for how it was structured.

The main on-the-record quotes raising concerns about Biden were from Republicans, including former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and his successor, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.). In one anecdote, The Journal said Biden erroneously described a policy change on a big energy project as a “study,” when, in fact, the administration has routinely used that terminology before. A number of Democratic lawmakers — including Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) — were quick to say that their on-the-record rebuttals did not make it into The Journal’s final piece. Murray said in an interview she spoke to the paper twice.

That The Journal was the outlet to print the item was a particular sore spot for the White House. According to three people familiar with the communications shop’s perceptions of the press corps, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal thinking, the West Wing has long viewed the paper’s White House reporters as both predictable and sober-minded, chief among them Ken Thomas. It also sees The Journal’s audience as one it needs to cultivate — the center-right electorate that Biden must gain ground with if he is going to make up for his current deficit with younger, liberal voters.

The response didn’t just indicate that Biden’s age remains a sensitive point for the White House and allied Democrats, but that the president’s team is still uncertain about how best to parlay scrutiny of it. Having downplayed these storylines early in the administration, aides have tried to use humor or even embrace the idea that Biden is old (and wise) as a response. On Wednesday, they tried fury.

But inside the West Wing, Biden aides said they felt vindicated that cable news hosts slammed the piece. That included a Biden favorite, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, who called the story a “Trump hit piece” during a “Morning Joe” segment. (Deputy press secretary Andrew Bates posted about the segment at least nine times on Wednesday.)

Additional vindication would come from Capitol Hill, where several Republican senators downplayed the seriousness of the portrayal of Biden that their House GOP counterparts had presented.

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said in his meetings and phone calls with Biden he’s found the president “to be normally capable, intellectually. And with it. At the same time, when we get older like me, we may not be as sharp as we once were. But we, hopefully, make up for that with wisdom and better judgment.” Romney said he does not harbor concerns about Biden’s decision-making or fitness for the job.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who was sworn in by then-vice president Biden in 2015, said these days Biden is “clearly not the person I met in 2015. But then again, I’m not the person he met in 2015.” During a chat at a NATO Summit last year, Tillis said that Biden “carried the conversation well and was a bit more reserved” than he had been a few years ago.

“I don’t think at the end of the day a lot of people are going to draw a big distinction between either of the two candidates based on their mental acuity,” Tillis said.

But it wasn’t all gravy for Biden. Three years ago, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said the president was “sharp as a tack” in their meetings on infrastructure. On Wednesday, she said it was fair to question whether he still is: “I’m trying to be sensitive here to the issue. But yeah, I think it's a valid question.”

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