There is deep concern about President Biden’s cognitive abilities, as those with knowledge say that his decline is apparent.

Some Republican lawmakers have said that in private meetings the 81-year-old president has shown signs of decline, The Wall Street Journal reported.

“I used to meet with him when he was vice president. I’d go to his house,” former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy said to The Journal. “He’s not the same person.”

“He would ramble,” he said about the spring 2023 meetings to negotiate raising the debt ceiling. “He always had cards. He couldn’t negotiate another way.”

McCarthy said Biden experienced highs and lows over the course of two days in May 2023. After appearing spontaneous and alert in a phone call returning from Japan, he said Biden was forgetful and slow the following day.

“He was going back to all the old stuff that had been done for a long time,” he said of the 2023 debt ceiling negotiations.

“He was shocked when I’d say: ‘No, Mr. President. We talked about that meeting months ago. We are done with that,’” he said.

The vast number of critics in The Journal’s story did not go on record, but another who did was Republican Idaho Sen. James Risch.

“What you see on TV is what you get,” he said to The Journal. “These people who keep talking about what a dynamo he is behind closed doors — they need to get him out from behind closed doors because I didn’t see it.”

It is worth mentioning that when he was Speaker of the House, McCarthy did not have the same opinion of the president after the two met.

On May 23, 2023, he was speaking to reporters when he said that the president was “very professional, very smart [and] very tough at the same time.”

White House spokesman Andrew Bates said The Journal story was a Republican attack piece and defended the president.

“Congressional Republicans, foreign leaders, and nonpartisan national-security experts have made clear in their own words that President Biden is a savvy and effective leader who has a deep record of legislative accomplishment,” he said. “Now, in 2024, House Republicans are making false claims as a political tactic that flatly contradict previous statements made by themselves and their colleagues.”