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Former President Barack Obama’s White House physician said in a new interview that former President Joe Biden’s doctor should have performed a cognitive test to evaluate his fitness to serve in office.
Obama’s doctor, Jeffrey Kuhlman, told The Washington Post that Biden White House physician Kevin O’Connor should have performed a cognitive test during Biden’s last year as president, given his age.
O’Connor, who Kuhlman first appointed as Biden’s doctor in 2009 when he was vice president, declared in a 2024 report that the then-81-year-old president “continues to be fit for duty.” The report did not mention any neurocognitive testing.
“Sometimes those closest to the tree miss the forest,” Kuhlman told the Post.
“It shouldn’t be just health, it should be fitness,” Kuhlman said. “Fitness is: Do you have that robust mind, body, spirit that you can do this physically, mentally, emotionally demanding job?”
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Kuhlman, who departed the White House Medical Unit in 2013, described O’Connor as “a good doctor” who appeared to do his best to “give trusted medical advice.”
“I didn’t see that he’s purposely hiding stuff, but I don’t know that,” Kuhlman told the Post. “Maybe the investigation will show it.”
President Donald Trump on Wednesday ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate whether Biden’s aides “abused the power of Presidential signatures through the use of an autopen to conceal Biden’s cognitive decline and assert Article II authority.”
“This conspiracy marks one of the most dangerous and concerning scandals in American history,” the order says. “The American public was purposefully shielded from discovering who wielded the executive power, all while Biden’s signature was deployed across thousands of documents to effect radical policy shifts.”
“Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency,” Biden said in a statement Wednesday night. “I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false.”
Trump’s order appeared to nod to the findings of special counsel Robert Hur, who investigated Biden’s handling of classified documents while he was vice president.
In a report released in February 2024, Hur concluded Biden “willfully retained and disclosed” sensitive materials but should not stand trial, describing the president as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” Hur cited instances when Biden could not recall key dates and events, including when he served as vice president and when his son, Beau, passed away. The report was released at a time when Biden was still planning a second term run.
Last week, House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., issued a subpoena for O’Connor to appear for a deposition at the end of the month “as part of the investigation into the cover-up of President Joe Biden’s cognitive decline and potentially unauthorized issuance of sweeping pardons and other executive actions.”
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The committee re-posted the Post’s interview with Kuhlman to X, writing, “Even Obama’s doctor admits the truth. This is precisely why Chairman @RepJamesComer subpoenaed Dr. Kevin O’Connor, Biden’s physician. This is a scandal of historical proportions, and we will investigate it thoroughly!”
In a letter to O’Connor, Comer said the transcribed interview would focus on the physician’s February 2024 assessment that Biden was “a healthy, active, robust 81-year-old male, who remains fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency.”
“Among other subjects, the Committee expressed its interest in whether your financial relationship with the Biden family affected your assessment of former President Biden’s physical and mental fitness to fulfill his duties as President,” Comer wrote.
Questions about Biden’s cognitive state stretch extend solely past Republicans.
CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’ Alex Thompson recently published a book titled “Original Sin,” which details concerns and debates inside the White House and Democratic Party over Biden’s mental state and age.
In the book, Tapper and Thompson wrote, “Five people were running the country, and Joe Biden was at best a senior member of the board.”
Naomi Biden, the former president’s granddaughter, dismissed the book as “political fairy smut for the permanent, professional chattering class.”
Comer requested transcribed interviews with Biden’s White House senior advisers Mike Donilon and Anita Dunn, former White House chief of staff Ron Klain, former deputy chief of staff Bruce Reed and Steve Ricchetti, a former counselor to the president. He also called for former senior White House aides Annie Tomasini, Anthony Bernal, Ashley Williams and Neera Tanden to appear before the committee and suggested subpoenas could be forthcoming if they did not schedule voluntary interviews.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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