Former Vice President Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign accused Fox News personalities of spreading rumors about the presidential hopeful being in poor health, The Daily Beast reports.
Fox News host Sean Hannity and Fox Business host Lisa “Kennedy” Montgomery have discussed Biden’s health on the air multiple times. On a May 29 broadcast of “The Five,” Kennedy compared Biden to 2016 Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, saying Democrats are quietly talking about Biden’s health, The Daily Beast reports.
{mosads}“If you talk to Democrats, who are working for different campaigns, all of the aggressive gossip whisperers — and this is where the action is happening in terms of opposition research — it’s people having a few drinks at a bar and whispering, ‘You know there is something wrong with the former vice president,’” she said. Last week, Kennedy said Biden’s staff should keep their candidate “off a main stage” because he says “stupid things and he slurs,” adding that Biden “does look very tired.”
Hannity, who has used the nickname “Sleepy Joe” to refer to Biden, also called the former vice president “tired,” adding “he does not have the energy for this.”
In a statement to The Daily Beast, Biden campaign press secretary TJ Ducklo said, “These are baseless lies meant to stoke fear in their viewers. It has no place in our public discourse, and anyone amplifying it bears some responsibility for giving it legitimacy it most certainly does not deserve.”
Fox News declined a request for comment from The Hill.
Rumors about politicians’ health have affected both parties and members of the media have also called President Trump’s health into question since the president took office.
MSNBC “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough claimed in 2017 that “people close to [Trump] during the campaign told me he had early stages of dementia,” adding that Trump “is not well.”
CNN’s Brian Stelter has questioned why more journalists don’t ask “uncomfortable questions” about Trump’s mental state, and he’s also said the president’s actions “have been described as unpresidential, unhinged, and sometimes even crazy.”
{mosads}CNN host Don Lemon has also questioned Trump’s fitness for office, and most recently, CNN chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta weighed in on talks surrounding Trump’s fitness for office.
“I can’t assess the president’s mental state,” Acosta said, “but I will tell you my sense of it, covering him for a pretty long period of time now, is that he’s more crazy like a fox.”
And the Daily Beast has also added to rhetoric surrounding Trump’s mental state.
In October 2017, the media outlet published an article titled, “These 27 Top Shrinks Think Trump Might Be Nuts.” In addition, a March 24 article posted on the publication’s website is headlined, “How Close is Donald Trump to a psychiatric breakdown?”