The former Chief of Staff of former President Joe Biden, Jeff Zients, went before a congressional panel September 18, 2025 and testified that Biden became increasingly difficult to work with. More meetings were required to make final decisions and Biden increasingly found it difficult to remember names and dates and events.
Zients also testified Biden’s son, Hunter, was in on the meetings to decide who Biden should pardon. He also noted that Biden’s work availability was increasingly less and less. He did claim the Biden debate fiasco against President Trump was caused by a cold, though he could not recall ever seeing Biden react this badly, even with a cold, before.
Biden Chief of Staff Zients Suggested Need for Cognitive Exam– www.dailysignal.com
Source Link
Excerpt:
Former President Joe Biden’s White House chief of staff told a congressional panel Thursday that he asked the White House physician about a full medical and cognitive exam after Biden’s disastrous June 2024 debate with Donald Trump.
Jeff Zients is the last scheduled witness to take questions from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee for its investigation into Biden’s fitness while he was in office. Zients said that Dr. Kevin O’Connor told him he would take the suggestion under advisement, according to a person familiar with Zients’ closed-door interview with the committee.
Zients was White House chief of staff from February 2023 to the end of Biden’s term in January 2025. He ignored reporters who peppered him with questions as he walked into the interview with the committee. He told the committee that after Biden’s poor debate performance against Trump, he thought it made sense for the president to drop out of the reelection race.
The House committee has been investigating Biden’s cognitive state and whether staff improperly used the White House autopen for major presidential actions, such as offering clemency to felons, without authorization from the president.
Zients also said the former president’s son, Hunter Biden, was involved in the pardon discussions and attended meetings on the matter, according to the person familiar with the interview. The then-president pardoned Hunter Biden, who had been convicted of tax and gun crimes.
