President Joe Biden has no apparent physical ailments, but his handling of various public events has brought on questions about his cognitive abilities. With every stumble or mangled sentence within a speech or response to a reporter's question – scenes that have become common on social media – more are asking if Biden's handlers are handling most of the presidential business.
"I certainly get that perception," Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Jerry Boykin, the executive vice president of Family Research Council said on Washington Watch Monday.
"You've got an awful lot of people who still support the president's way of doing business, if you will; but that said, this shows he's weak. It also shows he doesn't have his eye on the ball. This is what results when you have a president who's not up to the task," Boykin told show host Jody Hice.
Where's SecDef? Anybody seen him?
NBC News reported that the White House remained uninformed of Austin's hospitalization until last Thursday – three days after he arrived at Walter Reed, the military hospital. Austin remains hospitalized. Initially, very little information was released about his condition. It's since been reported that he's being treated for prostate cancer.
According to NBC News, during Austin's hospital stay the U.S. has conducted a rare strike against a senior Iranian-backed militia member, military bases with Americans have been attacked at least six times, and the administration is considering possible strikes against Iran-backed Houthi terrorists who continue to attack commercial shipping in the Red Sea.
There are also wars going on in Ukraine and Israel while the defense secretary, who is part the U.S. nuclear program, remains unavailable.
"You have to have the basic sound judgment to give a call to the President or the national security advisor and say, 'Hey, I'm going in for this surgery' – or you have to have your staff call in and do that," said Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) in a Fox News interview.
"If your judgment is so poor on such a simple matter, what does it say about your judgment on things like the withdrawal from Afghanistan, or the support for Israel in the Middle East, or efforts to deter China from attacking Taiwan?" Cotton asked.
Austin issued a statement last Saturday night saying, "I recognize I could have done a better job ensuring the public was appropriately informed. I commit to doing better." He said he takes full responsibility for "my decision about disclosure."
Leadership ramifications worse than imagined
Boykin called Austin's secrecy a failure of leadership with roots going back almost a decade. Though it was easy to predict promotions then, the fallout has been worse than expected, Boykin said.
"Let's go back to the Obama administration. It was very clear to those of us who were in the military who was going to get promoted to the highest levels – the general officers, the flag officers – and they were the people who were willing to support the Obama agenda," Boykin recalled.
"Those are the people now who were promoted to the highest positions that we are living with today. They're the ones who are holding these jobs that we were just talking about. I think we are paying for it in a way that none of us … I certainly couldn't have predicted that we would have this kind of situation.
Wicker to White House: This isn't going away
Republican Sen. Roger Wicker, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, says there must be full transparency from the Biden administration regarding the medical condition of the Secretary Austin.
Austin's backup – Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks – supposedly took over his duties while she was vacationing in Puerto Rico. Like Boykin, Republicans on Capitol Hill say the DOD's failure to inform the White House, Congress, and the American people of Austin's condition reflects the lack of leadership, competency, and transparency throughout the entire Biden administration.
Sen. Wicker says the Biden administration must come clean. "This is an indictment of the administration's attitude toward public disclosure and toward full transparency. It's not going to go away," he tells AFN.
"They have now commissioned a 30-day internal review – but that is not going to be adequate. If we want to have a review, it needs to be done by an outside Inspector General."
According to Wicker, a federal statute must be followed if power is transferred from the secretary to the deputy secretary.
"If that [transfer of power] happens, the statute kicks in – and not only do you have to tell the president and people up and down the chain, but there's a specific statute that says you have to tell … the Republican and Democratic leaders of both houses [of Congress]," he adds.
Wicker is hopeful hearings will be held in both the Senate and the House regarding this matter.
