EXCLUSIVEInside the White House cover-up: How the Biden inner circle's 'calculated' plot to hide Joe's decline dramatically backfired

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White House aides have carried out a 'calculated' years-long plot to hide President Joe Biden's cognitive decline from the world, an insider reveals, only to see the 'gatekeeping' effort fail miserably when he had to fend for himself during last month's debate. 

Staff closest to the ailing 81-year-old deployed a multitude of tactics to hide his deficiencies - limiting reporter access to him, giving the president smaller stairs for Air Force One and physically surrounding him in public to hide his stiff walk, a former Biden aide tells DailyMail.com.

Biden has also been given large-print notecards with the most basic of instructions written on them for almost every event and kept to a tighter daily schedule so he can get more sleep.

There was even staff charged with devising strategies to keep the president from falling down, the source said. 

Now, the insider says, those advisers who coordinated the president's protective cocoon should be held to blame for his spectacular fall from grace and the mounting calls for him to drop his reelection bid. 

The ex-senior staffer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the 'guardrails' placed around Biden meant his meandering and mumbling debate performance was amplified to the more than 50 million viewers.

And because his deficits had been shielded from the public by those inner circle aides many Americans were shocked to suddenly see his dramatic decline exposed live on national TV.

Biden's falls and gaffes since he took office in 2001 had been highlighted largely by conservative-leaning media outlets but all-but-ignored by more liberal news organizations. 

That is, until his primetime car-crash two weeks ago on CNN.

President Joe Biden's debate performance has put his political future in danger - and has also increased scrutiny on the White House's years long effort to ensure he doesn't act his age 

'I always thought that it was the people around him that were going to be his downfall,' the source told DailyMail.com.

The source added that any CEO would be a 'moron' to hire anyone from the Biden administration when they have done this much damage to a 'brand'.

Biden's inner circle, they say, 'carpet-bombed his relationships with the media that he built over 40 years by waging an unnecessary war of choice with an entire industry that shapes public perception.'

'It was the war that they waged, it was the access that they limited, it was the opportunities they turned down, it was the gatekeeping and hiding him from authentic interaction - all those things that were calculated by his team are his downfall,' the ex-aide continued.

'The problem is when you hide him, or when you limit his ability to engage and communicate, people are not conditioned to seeing him,' the source said. 'So his mistakes and his age are amplified.'

'And even if they're common, normal, verbal gaffes or slip-ups, like confusing two different presidents' names, those common mistakes are going to be put on blast by the media because he's so infrequently engaging in unscripted ways.'

The source said Biden could have survived the debate fallout if the White House had done two things: 'Goodwill and credibility with the press corps.'

The West Wing has deployed multiple strategies to explain any of Biden's missteps and have been accused of doing everything they can do cover up his decline.

House Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday the Democrats and aides involved are part of the 'biggest political cover-up that we have ever seen'.

Now the White House ploys have begun to undermine their arguments Biden is fit to serve a second term. 

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre confounded reporters during Monday's briefing when she couldn't give a simple explanation for why a Parkinson's expert had visited the White House eight times 

Author Chris Whipple, who wrote a biography on Biden in 2022, called this White House the 'most scripted in history'.

Biden has hosted an historically low number of press conferences and given very little interviews. 

When he speaks he relies heavily on a teleprompter and only rarely takes questions.

His press aides are extremely defensive and attack reports questioning his health or showing the president 'freezing' or in an awkward encounter.

In the last week, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has been hammered by the media for ducking questions about a Parkinson's expert visiting the White House eight times in eight months.

Jean-Pierre, known for her non-answers and reliance on her binder, has been creative with her excuses for Biden's conduct.

In June, when several videos showed what appeared to be the president 'freezing,' Jean-Pierre dubbed them 'cheap fakes,' and pushed that they were deceptively edited.

In one case it's clear that Biden is engaging with a paratrooper off-screen - in a viral video from the G7 in Italy - but in others, the president does appear to be spaced-out - first at a Juneteenth concert and then at a fundraiser where former President Barack Obama leads him offstage.

But Jean-Pierre has also refused to answer direct questions when the president has been guilty of a gaffe.

When Biden called Japan 'xenophobic' - lopping the top ally in with Russia and China - Jean-Pierre wouldn't say what exactly happened.

She acted similarly when reporters tried to get to the bottom of why Biden in September 2022 asked 'where's Jackie?' at a nutrition event.

He was looking around the room for Rep. Jackie Walorski, who had died in a car accident the month before.

Jean-Pierre wouldn't say whether it was a malfunctioning teleprompter or if the president had forgetten the congresswoman in question was no longer alive.

The press secretary insisted that Walorski was merely 'at top of mind.'

Since Biden's disastrous debate performance, more details have leaked about how White House aides schedule his day.

Most of Biden's events are scheduled between 10 am and 4pm, because that is when Biden is 'dependably engaged,' Axios reported.

His preparations for the debate were also held during the day so he had time for an afternoon nap, The New York Times reported.

The president confirmed his scheduling limitations to Democratic governors last week when he said he needed more sleep and to stop holding events past 8pm.

World leaders have even gone out of their way to adapt to his tighter schedule, but it still hasn't worked.

At the G7 in Switzerland in June 2022, an early evening meeting was scheduled with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, but Biden still skipped it and sent Secretary of State Antony Blinken instead, the Wall Street Journal reported.

When Blinken arrived, he announced to attendees that Biden had gone to bed (a claim the State Department has denied.)

For years, detailed notecards have guided President Joe Biden through events, but he's leaned on them so heavily it's was concerning Democratic donors - and that was before last month's debate

The president has also skipped a number of formal dinners with world leaders while traveling abroad.

He passed on attending the dinner at last year's NATO summit Vilnius, Lithuania in July.

Two months before that, he left a G7 dinner early when world leaders were gathered at on Miyajima Island outside of Hiroshima, known for its iconic 'floating' torii gate and domesticated deer population.

At the G20 in Bali in 2022, Biden also didn't attend the leaders dinner.

He did, however, show up to dinner in September when the G20 was in India.

President Joe Biden (left) is photographed taking the shorter set of Air Force One stairs after a series of trips. He first fell up Air Force One's stairs in March 2021 (right), two months into his administration 

For years, detailed notecards have guided Biden through events, but his reliance on them in recent months had Democratic donors tense - and that was even before the disastrous debate.

The sheets give a play-by-play of what the president is supposed to do - directions as simple as 'YOU take YOUR seat.'

They give Biden the run-of-show for events where television cameras are rolling.

And he's shown that he's needed the instructions - memorably wandering off an MSNBC set in June 2023 after a sit-down with the network's Nicolle Wallace.

In April President Joe Biden started walking to Marine One swarmed by his staff after some aides fretted that his solo walk across the South Lawn called too much attention to his stiff gait 

Some donors voiced concerns to Axios in February when Biden would use the notecards during private meetings to answer pre-screened questions.

The staged question and answer sessions left donors wondering if Biden could withstand the rigors of a campaign, as it looked like he wasn't able to provide off-the-cuff answers.

Last summer, Biden almost exclusively started taking the small stairs to board Air Force One.

He originally tripped up the stairs of the presidential plane just two months into his administration – heading to Atlanta in March 2021.

He did so again when leaving Warsaw in February 2023 – after his grueling secret trip to Ukraine.

And he did so again in March 2023 as he headed to Selma, Alabama.

But after he tripped over a sandbag at a Colorado commencement, aides acknowledged to Politico that Biden's use of the shorter Air Force One staircase was intentional to avoid future falls – as it cuts down the number of steps from 26 to 14.

In April, Biden suddenly changed the protocol for how he walked to Marine One - the presidential helicopter that waits for him on the South Lawn.

President Joe Biden started sporting more sneakers after he fell over a sandbag at a commencement ceremony in Colorado last summer. He's photographed with first lady Jill Biden in September 2023

This spring Biden started wearing a $150 pair of wide sole trainers from the sportswear brand Hoka

President Joe Biden was sporting a new pair of kicks to the debate in Atlanta last month.  DailyMail.com identified them as Cole Haan's ØriginalGrand Energy Twin Oxfords, which retail for around $200 and give the wearer 'bouncy comfort' with 'all-day responsive cushioning'

For three-plus years, unless Biden was with the first lady, he'd walk to the aircraft solo.

Aides would wait until the president had boarded and then make their own way to the helicopter.

But all of the sudden when Biden was walking to the helicopter, a swarm of aides joined him for the lawn-crossing, which is captured by the White House press.

The swarm, according to Axios, was decided upon by the president after some aides fretted that his solo walks across the South Lawn called too much attention to his stiff gait.

With the aides surrounding him, the visual is less stark.

White House spokesperson Andrew Bates ridiculed Axios for calling attention to the new, obscured view of the president walking.

'He's fully visible except for a few seconds,' Bates said. 'Impeach.'

Indents on President Joe Biden's face when he left for a trip to Chicago in late June 2023 prompted the White House to tell journalists that he's started using a CPAC machine