While most Americans celebrated Independence Day, an unlikely source — New York magazine — published a damning exposé on the "conspiracy of silence to protect" President Joe Biden.

For the entirety of Biden's presidency, Americans have worried about his cognitive health. But according to New York magazine correspondent Olivia Nuzzi, the president has declined so rapidly that in January, she began to hear from a chorus of well-connected Democratic officials, activists, and donors who offered her shocking stories about the severity of Biden's decline.

'It hasn't been good for a long time, but it’s gotten so, so much worse.'

Of course, none of her sources spoke on the record. But they decided to come forward, she explained, because they were "burdened," "scared," and "horrified" by what they knew.

1. Biden forgets things he shouldn't

With age, everyone's memory slips. People lose the ability to remember insignificant details.

But the commander in chief — the most powerful man on the face of the planet — is forgetting the names of "longtime friends of the Biden family," according to Nuzzi.

"Those who encountered the president in social settings sometimes left their interactions disturbed.Longtime friends of the Biden family, who spoke to me on the condition of anonymity, were shocked to find that the president did not remember their names," she reported.

"At a White House event last year, a guest recalled, with horror, realizing that the president would not be able to stay for the reception because, it was clear, he would not be able to make it through the reception," she wrote. "The guest wasn’t sure they could vote for Biden, since the guest was now open to an idea that they had previously dismissed as right-wing propaganda: The president may not really be the acting president after all."

One source who witnessed an incident at the White House recently — in which first lady Jill Biden was forced to instruct Biden how to say "hello" to a Democratic mega-donor and family friend — told Nuzzi that Biden's decline has become exponentially worse.

"It hasn't been good for a long time, but it’s gotten so, so much worse," that witness said. "So much worse!"

2. People don't know who is in charge

As the chief executive, the Constitution entrusts Biden with tremendous responsibility.

But Nuzzi's sources — again, well-connected Democrats — told her they are not sure who is actually in charge of the country.

Interestingly, Nuzzi reported that her sources have found themselves in "full agreement" with Donald Trump supporters on an idea that is otherwise dismissed as a conspiracy theory.

She wrote:

Who was actually in charge? Nobody knew. But surely someone was in charge? And surely there must be a plan, since surely this situation could not endure?

I heard these questions posed at cocktail parties on the coasts but also at MAGA rallies in Middle America. There emerged a comical overlap between the beliefs of the nation’s most elite liberal Biden supporters and the beliefs of the most rabid and conspiratorial supporters of former President Trump. Resistance or QAnon, they shared a grand theory of America in 2024: There has to be a secret group of high-level government leaders who control Biden and who will soon set into motion their plan to replace Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee. Nothing else made sense. They were in full agreement.

3. Biden's lifeless appearance

Up close, the president looks like he is "something not of this earth," according to Nuzzi.

"Up close, the president does not look quite plausible. It's not that he's old. We all know what old looks like. Bernie Sanders is old. Mitch McConnell is old. Most of the ruling class is old. The president was something stranger, something not of this earth," Nuzzi revealed.

She made this conclusion after her most recent encounter with Biden — at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in April — during which the president couldn't remember her name despite knowing her.

"My heart stopped as I extended my hand to greet the president. I tried to make eye contact, but it was like his eyes, though open, were not on," she wrote.

"His face had a waxy quality. He smiled. It was a sweet smile. It made me sad in a way I can’t fully convey," she continued. "He took my hand in his, and I was startled by how it felt. Not cold but cool. The basement was so warm that people were sweating and complaining that they were sweating. This was a silly black-tie affair. I said 'hello.' His sweet smile stayed frozen. He spoke very slowly and in a very soft voice. 'And what’s your name?' he asked."

Other reporters had met with Biden that night for a photo op. When she exited the area, Nuzzi reported that she heard those journalists making "guesses about how dead he appeared to be, percentage wise."

"Forty percent?" one journalist asked.

4. Biden's debate performance

The White House, Biden's campaign, and even Biden himself have acknowledged that his performance at last Thursday's debate was not good.

But Nuzzi said that she reached a different conclusion.

With all of the knowledge that she had gathered after interviewing Democratic sources for her story, Biden performed much better than she expected.

"[W]hen I watched the president amble stiffly across the stage, my first thought was: He doesn’t look so bad. For months, everything I had heard, plus some of what I had seen, led me to brace for something much more dire," Nuzzi admitted.

That all of these stories are being reported only after Biden's disastrous debate performance appears to indict the media and entire political ruling class. They appear to have known what was happening behind the scenes, yet they remained silent — even pushing Biden to run for re-election — until Biden's prime-time meltdown.

These stories, moreover, raise an important question: Will there be any accountability?

For her part, Nuzzi addressed questions of why her story was published about six months after she began work on it.

"Reporting takes time. I started to hear from these sources in January. This piece is about a conspiracy of silence that made people reluctant to talk. The reporting process is talking to sources and corroborating information and getting more information and corroborating that. Debate changed some people’s calculations about how candid they would be, and even then not on the record. Most of my stories take months and months," she explained.

This is true. Reporting, like Nuzzi's enterprise journalism, takes a lot of time, energy, and resources. But Nuzzi is not the only political journalist privy to the stories and information that she revealed.

The bigger question, then, is this: What is the rest of the media's excuse?

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