Officials close to President Biden believe the upcoming State of the Union address could be an opportunity to reset or “neutralize” public perceptions about his age and memory before the November election.
According to a Monday report from Axios, Biden’s allies plan to spend hours on the text of his speech as well as the president’s physical preparation to turn the prime-time address into a campaign victory.
“Everyone around him is well aware — well aware — of the need to jack this campaign up,” a source close to Biden said. “The only way to deal with the negative aftershocks of the special counsel’s report [criticizing Biden’s memory] is for the president to be out there, to be visible — to be strong of presence and strong of voice.”
Biden is allegedly considering an executive order that could have a drastic impact on the flow of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. Sources suggest that the president could take action two weeks before the State of the Union address, allowing him to claim action over the crisis after Republicans mobilized to block a bipartisan border package.
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U.S. President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress as Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) listen on February 7, 2023 in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. (Jacquelyn Martin-Pool/Getty Images)
Biden officials are hoping that the public response to the address will be similar to last year, when the president claimed that Republicans aimed to cut Social Security and Medicare programs.
Plans to re-energize Biden’s 2024 campaign follow the recent Hur report, which investigated the president’s handling of classified documents, after the prosecutor, in his final report, noted that Biden struggled to remember details such as when his son died.
While Hur’s report decided not to prosecute Biden for criminal wrongdoing, it characterized the president as an “elderly man with a poor memory” and led to a flurry of questions from reporters and commentary from left-leaning pundits.
The Associated Press recently reported that a cabal of liberal experts, legal advisers and others are confident Biden will be re-elected but are urging him to prepare for the worst: another Trump presidency beginning in 2025.
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President Joe Biden speaks in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House on Thursday, Feb. 8, in Washington, D.C., following the release of Hur’s report. (AP/Evan Vucci)
“My impression is the Biden administration is taking very seriously that potential threat and is trying to do things now,” Michael Linden, former executive associate director of the White House Office of Management and Budget under Biden, told the AP. Although he added there was no “magic bullet” to stop Trump if he took office again. “Nobody should be under any illusion that there’s anything that this president can do in advance to prevent the next president from doing things that are very damaging, potentially catastrophically.”
The White House did not return Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Fox News’ David Rutz contributed to this report.
