A new report released on Sunday has shed light on the tactics employed by President Joe Biden’s inner circle to shield him from the scrutiny of both the press and White House staff, amid growing concerns over his declining capabilities.
The most damning revelations come not from anonymous sources, but from Chandler West, the former White House deputy director of photography. In a post-debate Instagram story, West sharply criticized his former boss, providing a rare glimpse into the internal dynamics of the Biden administration.
The Instagram story, which has since gone viral, includes screenshots obtained by various news outlets. In his posts, West detailed the extreme measures taken by Biden’s team to control his interactions with the media and limit his exposure to staff. He accused the inner circle of creating a “bubble” around the president, designed to protect him from any challenging or unpredictable situations.
“These tactics are unprecedented,” West wrote. “They go to extraordinary lengths to prevent the president from facing any real scrutiny. It’s as if they’re managing a fragile artifact rather than a sitting president.”
West’s allegations highlight specific instances where the president’s team actively intervened to avoid press interactions. According to West, the team would often pre-screen questions and limit press conferences to avoid any potential gaffes or missteps by Biden. Additionally, he described scenarios where staff were discouraged from engaging directly with the president, creating a highly controlled environment around him.
“These aren’t just minor adjustments; they’re significant barriers put in place to prevent the president from engaging with the very people he was elected to serve,” West continued. “It’s concerning to see this level of manipulation and control.”
West argued that it was time for the president to walk away:
“It’s time for Joe to go.” That’s what Chandler West, the White House’s deputy director of photography from January 2021 to May 2022, wrote in an Instagram story after the debate.
“I know many of these people and how the White House operates. They will say he has a ‘cold’ or just experienced a ‘bad night,’ but for weeks and months, in private, they have all said what we saw last night — Joe is not as strong as he was just a couple of years ago,” West wrote, according to screenshots obtained by Axios.
Reached by phone, West said he wrote the post because “the debate was not the first bad day, and it’s not gonna be the last.” He declined to comment further.
West declined to comment further. He worked at the WH till mid-2022 and worked on the Hillary and Biden campaigns in 2016 and 2020.
The report goes on to list how First Lady Jill and her closest advisers keep the president protected:
Biden’s behavior stunned many in the White House in part because Biden’s closest aides — often led by Jill Biden’s top aide, Anthony Bernal, and deputy chief of staff Annie Tomasini — took steps early in his term to essentially rope off the president.
Even the White House’s residence staff, which serves the first family in the mansion’s living quarters, has been kept at arm’s length.
A former residence official told Axios that Jill Biden was “so protective of the president, and then Anthony just protects her, and they often wouldn’t let us do anything for them.”
“The separation between the family and the residence staff was so big, so divided,” the former official said. “It’s not supposed to be and usually isn’t, even in the Trump White House.”
Meanwhile, West doesn’t look like a scary mega MAGA white supremacist fascist to me:
The timing of West’s revelations, coming shortly after a widely criticized debate performance by Biden, has intensified the scrutiny on the administration’s handling of the president’s public appearances. Critics argue that these protective measures only serve to underscore the concerns about Biden’s declining health and ability to perform his duties effectively.
