Author and journalist Chris Whipple – who wrote a 2023 biography about President Joe Biden – called Biden’s White House the most “scripted” in modern history during a CNN panel Tuesday night.
Whipple said he interviewed nearly all of Biden’s inner circle during the two years he had exclusive access to the inner workings of the White House.
“I can tell you having written a book about it,” Whipple said. “This White House is the most batten down, buttoned up, scripted White House in modern history.”
Although Whipple’s book – “The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden’s White House” – was a biography about the president, Whipple claimed he was never allowed to interview Biden.
Over the course of those two years, Whipple said he never asked the president questions in person, over Zoom or during a phone call.
“When it came to Biden himself, the deal was written answers to written questions. I’d never heard of that before,” Whipple said.
The CNN panel last night focused on a report by The Wall Street Journal that claimed senior White House advisers pulled back on the president’s public appearances and impromptu exchanges to minimize the toll his age had taken on him.
Whipple said the White House either has “something to hide” or is “just obsessed with controlling the narrative.”
When discussing his conversations with high-level White House staffers, Whipple said: “I didn’t get any indication that he [Biden] was cognitively impaired and everyone said the opposite.”
But now, concerns are mounting about the president’s mental fitness after a disastrous debate performance that saw politicians, policymakers and media outlets across the political spectrum calling for Biden to bow out of the race.
Following a recent one-on-one interview, ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos said he did not believe Biden could serve another four years in office.
Whipple said Biden’s close friend told him that he thinks the president should have a complete neurological exam, release the results to the public and “let the chips fall.”
The friend has not told the president his suggestion because it is a “hard thing for a close friend to tell him,” Whipple said.
The biographer previously spoke out in support of the incumbent candidate. He said he was “rooting for” Biden in a guest essay published in The New York Times in January.
Whipple wrote then about the domineering White House and how it might hurt Biden’s campaign for re-election.
“The president can’t run effectively if he’s kept under wraps by overprotective advisers,” Whipple warned.
He argued in January that Biden’s most effective campaigning moments were the unscripted ones.
“The campaign will be more successful if it lets Joe be Joe and talk the way he actually talks,” Whipple said in the guest essay.