(PNA) – There is little denying that President Joe Biden often struggles to deliver a speech, especially when he ventures off-script or engages in unscripted dialogues with reporters, in which case his tendency to utter gaffes and misstatements increases dramatically.
It has now been revealed that the White House specifically avoids staging speeches or press events in the Oval Office due to one pertinent fact — a lack of permanent teleprompters to aid Biden in delivering his remarks, Breitbart reported.
Instead, the president’s aides and handlers greatly prefer making use of a special set built to resemble the interior of the White House that is actually located next door to the presidential residence in the Old Executive Office Building, which is equipped with teleprompters.
Fake White House set preferred over real Oval Office
That little tidbit was buried deep within a recent Politico article speculating on the possibility of an electoral rematch in 2024 between President Biden and former President Donald Trump, both of whom have indicated a desire to face each other once again.
That article pointed out, however, that there were some concerns among Biden’s allies and supporters about his ability to withstand “the rigors of another campaign” for the presidency.
It was noted that “the White House has largely abandoned using the Oval Office for press events in part because it can’t be permanently equipped with a teleprompter.”
“Biden aides prefer the fake White House stage built in the Old Executive Office Building next door for events, sacrificing some of the power of the historic backdrop in favor of an otherwise sterile room that was outfitted with an easily read teleprompter screen,” Politico added.
Keeping Biden on script, hiding cognitive decline, or avoidance of the media?
The New York Post, in reporting on this new revelation, took note of how President Biden seems to struggle with his delivery and word placement regardless of whether he is using a teleprompter or not, and also shared how the “fake White House stage” has been the subject of much mockery on social media.
Breitbart suggested the move could be linked to the increasingly obvious cognitive decline of the president and how polls show that a growing number of the American people are questioning Biden’s mental capabilities, particularly in his role as leader of the United States, if not the rest of the free world.
Fox News, however, linked the Politico story’s admission of the White House’s preference for the fake set to how exceptionally “guarded” Biden’s handlers are in terms of his accessibility to the media, and cited as evidence the remarkably low number of one-on-one interviews and full press conferences he has conducted in comparison to his recent predecessors at this point in their presidencies.
What is the real reason, other than teleprompters?
The Politico article declined to delve deeply into the reasons why the White House prefers the fake stage to the real Oval Office, aside from the teleprompter issue, leaving it to readers to interpret for themselves.
Whether it is simply to more easily keep Biden on script, to try and hide his apparent cognitive decline, or to lessen the likelihood of unscripted moments with the press — or perhaps a combination of all three — is unclear, but it is still more than a little concerning and out of the ordinary nonetheless.