Troubling questions about Biden’s mental fitness to serve another four years in office have intensified dramatically after a damning investigation – and the US president’s botched attempt to refute its findings – put his cognitive abilities under intense scrutiny. 

The special counsel’s report by Robert Hur, into Biden’s handling of classified documents after leaving the Vice-Presidency in 2017, found that the President “wilfully retained and disclosed classified materials” about national security matters, including the war in Afghanistan. Yet, despite his actions, it concluded that the 81-year-old president should not be prosecuted because a jury would view him as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”.

Cited evidence of an apparent decline in Biden’s mental state wasn’t limited to his apparent frequent inability to recall important information relevant to the investigation. According to the report, his “significantly limited” memory also meant he could not remember the year in which his son, Beau Biden, had died or the dates when he was Vice-President. 

In an attempt to defend his mental acuity, the President held an impromptu press conference on Thursday evening in which he asserted that, contrary to the report’s findings, his memory was “just fine”. 

But this counter-offensive spectacularly backfired. While answering questions about the Israel-Hamas war during the press conference, a muddled Biden referred to Egyptian President Mohamed al-Sisi as the president of Mexico. This comes just days after a campaign speech on Tuesday, in which he confused French President Emmanuel Macron with Francois Mitterrand, who served from 1981 to 1985, and died in 1996.

The sorry affair plays right into Donald Trump‘s hands. Aside from feeding into his narrative that “sleepy Joe” is unfit for another term in office, he will seize it as evidence to support his criticism of America’s legal “double standards”. The four-time indicted Trump has described the decision not to charge Biden as “unconstitutional selective prosecution” and the mark of a “two-tiered system of justice”. 

Write to us with your comments to be considered for publication at letters@reaction.life