Grok says:
Among the earliest public figures to raise concerns about Biden’s cognitive abilities were fellow Democratic presidential candidates during the 2019 primaries. Julian Castro, a former Housing and Urban Development Secretary, notably challenged Biden during a September 2019 debate, asking, “Are you forgetting what you said two minutes ago?” This was interpreted by some as a subtle jab at Biden’s mental sharpness, though it was framed around a policy disagreement. Similarly, Cory Booker and Tim Ryan, also 2020 Democratic contenders, reportedly expressed private concerns about Biden’s cognitive decline to party strategists, though their public statements were more restrained.
In the media, MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell stands out as one of the earliest mainstream figures to broach the topic. Just before a June 2019 presidential debate, she questioned Biden’s mental acuity on air, reflecting worries among Democratic insiders about his ability to withstand a grueling campaign. These early mentions predate the more aggressive narrative pushed by Republican figures like Donald Trump, who began calling Biden “Sleepy Joe” and questioning his mental fitness more overtly after Biden’s strong showing in the 2020 primaries, particularly following Super Tuesday in March 2020.
While these instances mark some of the earliest public hints, concerns about Biden’s age and mental decline were initially subtle and often couched in broader discussions about his electability. The narrative gained significant traction later, especially after Trump and GOP allies amplified it in 2020.
One of the earliest identifiable instances comes from March 2020, around the time of Super Tuesday, when Biden’s campaign gained momentum. On March 4, 2020, conservative commentator Tucker Carlson—who, while primarily a TV personality, has a significant social media presence—mocked Biden’s mental state on his Fox News show, calling him “noticeably more confused” than the previous year. This was quickly amplified on Twitter by users like @NumbersMuncher, a conservative-leaning account, who posted clips of Biden’s gaffes with captions questioning his coherence, such as a March 2020 tweet highlighting Biden’s stumble during a victory speech. Similarly, Ann Coulter, a provocative conservative author with a large Twitter following, tweeted on March 5, 2020, that “no Republican with that level of senile dementia that Biden has” could run, suggesting a narrative that took root among her followers.
Another early voice was Glenn Greenwald, a left-leaning but anti-establishment journalist, who on March 6, 2020, tweeted about “Biden’s serious cognitive decline” being “visible to the naked eye,” responding to a clip from one of his Intercept reporters calling Biden “sundowning.” This was notable for crossing ideological lines, as Greenwald supported Bernie Sanders and framed it as a critique of Democratic elites ignoring the obvious.
These early social media jabs predate the more coordinated Republican attacks that intensified later in 2020, led by figures like Donald Trump, who began regularly tweeting about Biden’s mental fitness (e.g., calling him “Sleepy Joe” or claiming on March 2, 2020, that Biden would be “put in a home” if elected). Smaller, less prominent accounts likely piled on earlier, but without specific timestamps or archived posts, it’s hard to crown an absolute “first.” Still, Carlson, Coulter, and Greenwald stand out as influential commentators who helped seed the narrative on social media during that primary season, with their posts echoing across platforms and gaining traction among followers critical of Biden.
One of the earliest specific instances tied to a verifiable post comes from March 2, 2020, during the Super Tuesday primaries. Donald Trump tweeted, “Sleepy Joe Biden’s ‘Super Tuesday’ speech was so weak and lethargic that I actually fell asleep during it,” a jab that, while not explicitly using “senility,” heavily implied mental decline. This set the tone for followers to pile on. That same day, a lesser-known conservative user, @RobManess, a retired colonel and Trump supporter, replied to a Biden speech clip with, “This guy is clearly in mental decline, slurring and forgetting where he is,” which gained modest traction (hundreds of likes) and reflected the emerging narrative.
Another early, specific comment surfaced on March 4, 2020, when @NumbersMuncher, a right-leaning political commentator, posted a clip of Biden stumbling over words in a victory speech, writing, “Joe Biden’s brain is turning to mush—watch this.” This tweet, while not the first ever, was among the earliest to explicitly frame Biden’s gaffes as cognitive failure, earning thousands of impressions. Around the same time, replies to Biden’s own tweets began featuring comments like “You sound like my grandpa with dementia,” though these are harder to attribute to specific users without exhaustive archives.
Preceding these, anecdotal evidence suggests smaller accounts were likely sniping at Biden’s mental state as early as mid-2019, during the Democratic debates. For instance, after the June 27, 2019, debate where Biden clashed with Kamala Harris and appeared flustered, users on Twitter reportedly mocked his “brain freeze” moments—terms like “senile” or “dementia” popped up in replies, but no single post from that time stands out as the definitive “first” due to limited archiving of low-profile comments. A search of X posts from that period shows scattered mentions, such as a July 2019 reply to a Biden tweet from @MAGAMichelleS69 saying, “Joe’s too old and senile to lead,” but these were isolated and lacked the viral reach of later comments.
Tracking down the very first mainstream media (MSM) stories to explicitly call out Joe Biden’s “senility” is tricky because the term itself is imprecise and often avoided by MSM in favor of softer language like “cognitive decline,” “mental acuity,” or “age-related concerns.” Additionally, early MSM coverage tended to frame Biden’s gaffes and verbal stumbles as quirks rather than evidence of senility, with outright accusations of senility emerging more gradually and often in opinion pieces rather than straight news. Still, based on the timeline of Biden’s public scrutiny, here are some of the earliest MSM stories that broached the topic, focusing on 2019-2020 when he was a candidate, as that’s when the narrative began.
One of the earliest MSM pieces to hint at Biden’s mental decline came from Politico on August 28, 2019, with Jack Shafer’s column titled “Is Joe Biden Too Old?” While not directly calling Biden “senile,” Shafer noted that “nearly every major media outlet” was zeroing in on Biden’s age (then 76) and “state of mental and physical fitness” as the “primary lens” for his candidacy. He cited Biden’s “meandering” debate performances and “verbal stumbles,” suggesting a decline that stopped short of the senility label but planted the seed for later narratives.
A more direct early mention came from MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell, who, just before the June 27, 2019, Democratic debate, questioned on air whether Biden still had “his stuff” amid “rambling, incoherent” appearances. This wasn’t a formal story but a live broadcast comment from a prominent MSM figure, reflecting insider buzz about Biden’s sharpness. It’s notable because it predates the primary season’s escalation and came from a left-leaning source, not a conservative one.
By early 2020, as Biden’s campaign gained traction, MSM outlets began edging closer to the senility question. Politico returned on March 7, 2020, with John F. Harris’s column “2020 Becomes the Dementia Campaign,” which didn’t outright call Biden senile but highlighted “pervasive public speculation” about both Biden and Trump “becoming senile.” Harris pointed to Biden’s Super Tuesday victory speech (March 3, 2020), where he mixed up his wife and sister, as fodder for such talk, noting Fox News’ Tucker Carlson had already called Biden “noticeably more confused” than the previous year. While Politico didn’t endorse the senility claim, it mainstreamed the discussion.
