President Biden told George Stephanopoulos on Friday that he has not had a full neurological exam, because “no one said I had to.”
In an ABC News special, Stephanopoulos grilled the president in first interview since the June 27 debate with Donald Trump raised questions about Biden’s health and his fitness to continue his 2024 campaign.
“Have you had a full neurological and cognitive evaluation?” Stephanopoulos asked, a question he would return to several times during the conversation.
Biden’s answer was to quip, “I get a full neurological test everyday. And I’ve had a full physical. I’ve been at Walter Reed for my physicals.”
When Stephanopoulos pressed the president about whether he’d had “specific cognitive tests” or ben examined by neurologist or specialist, Biden said, “No. No one said I had to. No one said. They said I’m good.”
Biden, who mentioned at one point that he travels with a full phalanx of doctors, insisted there was no need to be assessed by an independent medical team.
“Look. I have a cognitive test every single day. Every day I have that test,” the president said, citing “everything I do” in his capacity as president counts as a cognitive test.
“You know, not only am I campaigning, but I’m running the world. That sounds like hyperbole, but we are the essential nation of the world,” he said.
When Stephanopoulos asked more pointedly if Biden was fit for four more years as president, Biden told him, “I guess a good way to judge me, is you’re gonna have now the NATO conference here in the United States next week. Come listen. See what they say.”
Biden had earlier touted himself as far more able to deal with NATO than his rival. “I was also the guy that expanded NATO. I was also the guy that grew the economy. All the individual things that were done were ideas I had or I fulfilled,” he said.
The president insisted that Democrat leaders would not ask him to step down and that he would do so only “if the Lord Almighty” so instructed him.
Earlier in the day, CNN’s Sanjay Gupta called for Biden to undergo a thorough neurological exam.
Gupta wrote, “For me as a brain specialist, it was concerning to watch President Joe Biden, and it quickly became clear that I was not alone in my reaction. Over the past week, I received more than a dozen calls, texts and emails from medical colleagues who, like me, specialize in the brain. It wasn’t that what we noticed was necessarily new but that it was particularly pronounced, and right from the start of the debate.”
The CNN commentator noted that Biden’s last physical was in February, in which he was pronounced “fit for duty.”
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