Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell testified that he hasn’t noticed any sort of cognitive decline in meetings with Joe Biden, a statement made amid a torrent of questions about the president’s health.
Powell, who occasionally meets with the president in his role leading the Federal Reserve, was testifying Wednesday before the House Financial Services Committee about monetary policy when he was unexpectedly asked about the trajectory of Biden’s mental acuity.
“I have a remaining quick question: In your meetings with the president, have you noticed any mental or cognitive decline?” Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) asked Powell.
“No,” the Fed chairman responded under oath.
Immediately following the exchange, Rep. Al Green (D-TX) interjected with a point of order. He said the question was a violation of the rules with relationship to decorum. He demanded that the words be taken down “in so far as they negatively reflect upon a candidate for president of the United States.”
Lawler ultimately withdrew his words.
Powell, a Republican, was first nominated to lead the Fed by former President Donald Trump, and Biden later renominated him.
The comment comes at a time when those working with Biden have been asked about his mental acuity and fitness for office. Some Democrats have called upon the president to step aside from the top of the party’s ticket after a debate against Trump during which he appeared halting and, at times, confused.
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Just before the exchange with Powell, actor George Clooney, who recently co-hosted a splashy fundraiser for Biden, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times in which he called on Biden to step aside and said every single lawmaker or governor he has spoken with has privately said that Democrats can’t win in November with Biden at the top of the ticket.
“It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe “big F-ing deal” Biden of 2010,” Clooney wrote. “He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”