OAN Staff Blake Wolf
2:45 PM – Wednesday, August 13, 2025
Newly unearthed records have revealed that the Biden administration scrapped a planned 2023 visit to a Philadelphia shipyard after officials became aware that the itinerary would require President Joe Biden to navigate a substantial number of steps to board a vessel.
This seemingly indicates that administration officials under Biden were acutely aware of the now-82-year-old Democrat’s physical limitations, recognizing that he lacked the stamina required to walk up, or down, the ship’s steps.
The records were obtained by watchdog group Protect the Public’s Trust through a Freedom of Information Act request. It recounted the Biden administration’s previous process of cancelling a scheduled visit to the National Security Multi-Mission Vessel in July 2023.
The Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration previously awarded the Philadelphia shipyard a contract to build the National Security Multi-Mission Vessel (NSMV) years prior, which then-President Biden was slated to inspect during the visit. However, days before the trip, Department of Transportation staffers gathered information pertaining to the specifics of what the president would be doing, which is when they ultimately decided against Biden attending.
“No visit to the SNMV vessel is planned after the WH realized how many steps were involved to get on the ship,” a Maritime Administration official told staffers of the Office of the Secretary of Transportation.
“Lots of steps on grating,” the message noted.
The decision was reportedly made by Biden’s “handlers” after he fell on stage at the U.S. Air Force Academy graduation ceremony the month prior.
At the time, the press reported that Biden tripped “on a black sandbag on the stage,” but appeared to “be okay and continued to stand until the ceremony ended a few minutes later.” However, some in attendance argued otherwise, claiming they saw no sandbag.
Additionally, just a week before Biden was set to visit the shipyard, he also stumbled while walking up Air Force One’s staircase on his way to the Helsinki-Vantaan International Airport in Finland.
A week after the Philadelphia event, then-White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre fielded questions about Biden’s age and mental decline, opting to discuss the president’s agenda while sidestepping the question at hand.
“Look, we’ve been asked this question multiple times,” Jean-Pierre stated. “And you have a president who – I just went through his Unity Agenda – what we’ve been able to do in a bipartisan way as it relates to issues that really matter to the American people — right? The Cancer Moonshot, which is actually going to make a difference with people and family — Americans who have been family members dealing with cancer. That is something that this president has been able to do.”
Protect the Public’s Trust’s report detailed the gravity of the situation.
“The president’s staff was proscribing events he couldn’t physically handle more than a year before he dropped out of the re-election race, all while lambasting anyone who claimed he wasn’t fit enough to complete the Ironman Competition. I realize there’s an elevator down to the White House Situation Room, but most voters would like to think they’re pulling the lever for a president who could take the stairs in an emergency.”
However, a former Biden aide responded to the report soon after, essentially changing the subject and condemning the group’s intention to criticize the former administration.
They argued that it is “ironic that an organization called ‘Protect the Public Trust’ is more interested in how many steps the former president took than the current president’s cost-raising agenda and close relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.”
“The group is presenting a deceptive story with this ‘don’t look at Epstein’ bait based on a single email with no context and they know it,” the aide added.
The latest unearthed email is further confirmation of the intentional cover-up of Biden’s mental decline, which is widely recognized, even by media figures like CNN’s Jake Tapper, who changed his tune after the result of the 2024 election.
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