Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said Wednesday that it “wouldn’t hurt” for President Biden to take a cognitive test.
Whitmer acknowledged that the assessment would be a good idea in an interview Wednesday, despite the octogenarian president denying that there’s a need for him to undergo such testing.
“I don’t think that it’d hurt, to be honest,” Whitmer told CNN in response to a question about Biden taking a mental acuity test.
The White House has been plagued with questions about Biden’s mental abilities since the June 27 debate, when he appeared to be confused and stumbled over his responses at times.
Polls show a majority of Americans are concerned about his mental fitness — and an increasing number of congressional Democrats and close allies are calling for him to drop out of the 2024 race.
The president tried to alleviate concerns about his age by sitting down for an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, but his performance there spurred even more allies to call on him to drop out.
Whitmer, a Democrat who has been a fierce supporter of Biden and is rumored to be a potential replacement if the president were to choose to suspend his campaign, also admitted that “the first presidential debate was not a success for President Biden.”
But, Whitmer said, Democrats need to continue to rally behind Biden while he’s in the race if they want to defeat former President Donald Trump.
“We can’t lose sight of how high these stakes are. We have a field. And unless one person, Joe Biden, makes an alternative decision, this is the field, and we’ve gotta go.”
Whitmer’s remarks echo a similar comment made by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who said Biden needs to “make that decision” on whether he’s going to stay in the race.
The president has been firm that he’s going to continue his bid. He wrote a letter to congressional Democrats on Monday stressing that he’s not dropping out, and later went on “Morning Joe” to say he is the Democratic nominee.
Biden has also laid out several excuses for his bad performance against Trump in the first debate. In his interview with Stephanopoulos, Biden argued that he was “exhausted” and “sick” with a “bad cold,” before pivoting to saying Trump’s points “distract me.”
He has never publicly released the results of a mental acuity test and has argued over the years that his time in the Oval Office is proof that he doesn’t need one.
“Look, I have a cognitive test every single day,” Biden told Stephanopolous. “Every day, I’ve had tests. Everything I do. You know, not only am I campaigning, I’m running the world. And that’s not — it sounds like hyperbole, but we are the central nation of the world.”