Axios describes an old man with Alzheimer's losing his executive function -- his ability to moderate and control his emotions -- and bursting out in angry frustration when his brain doesn't work the way it used to. (And how it used to work was poorly. It's worse now, obviously.)
Axios doesn't say that but they are describing all the symptoms that point to that diagnosis.
Old yeller: Biden's private fury
Here's how Axios describes the picture:
Photo illustration of an angry-looking President Biden wearing sunglasses reflecting flames
In public, President Biden likes to whisper to make a point. In private, he's prone to yelling.
Behind closed doors, Biden has such a quick-trigger temper that some aides try to avoid meeting alone with him. Some take a colleague, almost as a shield against a solo blast.
The president's admonitions include: "God dammit, how the f**k don't you know this?!," "Don't f**king bullsh*t me!" and "Get the f**k out of here!" -- according to current and former Biden aides who have witnessed and been on the receiving end of such outbursts.
Why it matters: The private eruptions paint a more complicated picture of Biden as a manager and president than his carefully cultivated image as a kindly uncle who loves Aviator sunglasses and ice cream.
Axios now, bizarrely, spins his angry diminished-executive-function outbursts as... a sign that he's actually very vigorous and engaged!!!!
Some Biden aides think the president would be better off occasionally displaying his temper in public as a way to assuage voter concerns that the 80-year-old president is disengaged and too old for the office.
...
Whipple's book quotes former White House press secretary Jen Psaki as saying: "I said to [Biden] multiple times, 'I'll know we have a really good, trusting relationship when you yell at me the first time.'"
Whipple notes: "Psaki wouldn't have to wait long."
More spin: Biden's irrational outbursts of volcanic emotion are actually very rational efforts at information-gathering!!!
Zoom out: Biden's temper comes in the form of angry interrogations rather than erratic tantrums.
He'll grill aides on topics until it's clear they don't know the answer to a question -- a routine that some see as meticulous and others call "stump the chump" or "stump the dummy."
Being yelled at by the president has become an internal initiation ceremony in this White House, aides say -- if Biden doesn't yell at you, it could be a sign he doesn't respect you.
He wouldn't hit me if he didn't love me.
Ted Kaufman, Biden's longtime chief of staff when the future president represented Delaware in the Senate, told Axios that Biden's process is policy-driven, and has made him a strong executive.
"If there is something that's not in the brief, he's going to find it," he said. "It's not to embarrass people, it's because he wants to get to the right decision. Most people who have worked for him like the fact that he challenges them and gets them to a better decision."
Oh yeah, Biden strikes me as a detail-oriented, relentlessly probing "policy oriented" guy.
Some Biden aides argue that the president's rages reflect his high expectations for his staff.
He only slaps me because he expects so much more of me!
"Speaking Biden" is a particular skill, they said. It can take years to learn to navigate his moodiness, and anticipate what information he's going to ask for in a briefing.
Information like, "Where the fuck's my fucking ice cream, fagg0t?!!?"
Some administration officials, many of whom went to elite schools, struggle with Biden's demand to ditch wonky, acronym-filled language and brief him as if they were talking to a close family member who isn't in the D.C. bubble.
The "policy oriented" genius who's totally about every little detail in a briefing needs the acronyms stripped out for him and the information delivered to him as if he's a third grader.
Jeff Connaughton, a former Biden campaign and Senate aide who was chief of staff to Kaufman when he filled Biden's seat in the Senate, wrote about Biden's temper in his 2012 book on Washington corruption, "The Payoff: Why Wall Street Wins."
Connaughton wrote that as a senator, Biden was an "egomaniacal autocrat ... determined to manage his staff through fear."
He told of a time during the 2008 presidential campaign when a 23-year-old fundraising staffer got into the car with Biden.
"Okay, senator, time to do some fundraising calls," the aide said. Biden responded by looking at him and snapping: "Get the f**k out of the car."
At the neoliberal propaganda outlet The Atlantic, leftwing scribbler Eliot Cohen calls for Biden to retire.
He also has no business running for president at age 80. I say that with considerable feeling, being in my late 60s and knowing that my 70s are not far off. I am as healthy as any late-middle-aged person (admittedly, I cringe at the word old, which tells you something right there) can be. But I know that at this stage, I do not have the energy I had a decade ago. I forget more things, and if my body does not hurt when I wake up in the morning, a little voice in my head asks whether I am dead and do not yet know it...
President Biden is 80 years old. If he gets reelected, he will be 86 by the time his term expires. He will have spent, at the end of that time, nearly half a century as a senator, vice president, or president, positions all calculated to inflate one's self-image. As president he has surrounded himself with former aides and dutiful technocrats--no peers who can look him straight in the eye and say, with the gravitas born of expertise and self-confidence, "Mr. President, I profoundly disagree." Perhaps this is what he has always done, but it is particularly striking now.
Reports say that Biden's nurse, "Doctor" Jill Biden, is actually running the show.
Jill Biden has been playing an outsized role in her husband's administration, mostly to protect him, according to a new report.
Sources claimed that Jill Biden is wielding quite a bit of influence over President Joe Biden's decisions as she participates directly in vetting administration officials, sitting in meetings, protecting her husband from long events, and many other duties that appear to shield her husband from handling too much on his own.
"Jill Biden's reported influence in the White House comes as Joe Biden has been scrutinized for being led off stage by the first lady, and appearing to be physically led away from reporters' questions. Jill Biden has been appearing frequently at public events and plans to hit the campaign trail going into the 2024 election," the Financial Times reported.
The Guardian reported similar details in a separate report, noting that Jill Biden is "running the show" behind the scenes...
You know the decisions The Regime has made in private by the coordinated messaging that rolls out in public days later.
Biden will most likely not be the Democrat nominee for 2024. Republicans need to plan accordingly.
While the leftwing media continues pressuring Biden to do what Ruth Bader Ginsburg did not do and retire, NeverTrumpers, many of whom are just paid by Democrats to run psyops operations against Republicans, continue praising Joe Biden's... shirtless sunbathing.
The NeverTrump Collaborators still aren't well trusted by The Regime -- no one trust a traitor -- and so they're among the last people told about The Regime's decisions. They'll continue making NeverTrump humiliate themselves defending an obviously demented, corrupt man for a while, before giving them their new marching orders that it's time to start praising Gavin Newsom.