White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Monday that no urgent security information has ever been withheld from President Joe Biden late at night or at a time when he "might not be able to process it."
The assertion came during Monday's press briefing.
"In your understanding of things, does the National Security Council ever withheld information from him that he should've known late at night out of concern he might not be able to process it?" Kirby was asked.
"No," Kirby replied.
The questions came in the aftermath of the first presidential debate on June 27 with Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump, during which Biden repeatedly lost his train of thought, misspoke, trailed off answering questions or blended his answers to different questions.
Just prior to that, Kirby was asked if he had ever seen Biden "appear similarly to the way he did on debate night."
"The last thing I'm going to do is sit here and talk about every meeting I've had with the president," Kirby said. "What I saw in that debate is not reflective of the man and the leader and commander in chief that I have spent many, many hours with over the last 2 1/2 years."
Kirby later was asked by another reporter if he's ever seen any of "those symptoms or affectations" that Biden displayed in the debate.
"I'm a little uncomfortable answering these kinds of questions," Kirby said. "But to answer your specific question, in my experience, the last 2 1/2 years, I have not seen any reason whatsoever to question or doubt his lucidity, his grasp of context, his probing nature, and the degree to which he is completely in charge of facts and figures."
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.