Sure, there had been occasions of mumbling and some apparent confusion, moments that were quickly clipped and shared on the right. During the debate, though, America saw the president as he hadn’t been seen publicly before.
Since then, there has been a push to understand how significant any age-related deterioration might be and to explore how the White House attempted to manage the situation. It has meant, too, that Biden and his administration face new scrutiny, down to the parsing of individual misstatements in his public appearances.
This week, that eagerness to identify issues seems, in one case, to have outpaced the evidence.
On Saturday morning, the New York Post reported that Kevin Cannard, “a Parkinson’s disease expert at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center,” met with Biden’s personal physician, Kevin O’Connor, at the White House in January. They were joined, the Post reported, by a cardiologist.
That same day, Alex Berenson — who gained fame as a purveyor of misinformation during the pandemic — noted on Substack that Cannard had made more than a half-dozen visits to the White House in the past year. Berenson described this information as being “VERY URGENT.”
On Monday, the New York Times covered the visits, walking through the timeline of Cannard’s visits. “Parkinson’s Expert Visited the White House Eight Times in Eight Months,” the headline read. The report triggered a flurry of questions during Monday’s White House press briefing, during which Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, insisted that privacy and security constraints limited her ability to discuss the visits.
Late Monday evening, the White House released a letter from O’Connor.
“Dr. Cannard has been the Neurology Consultant to the White House Medical Unit since 2012,” it noted. Cannard, O’Connor explained, “was the neurological specialist that examined President Biden for each of his annual physicals. His findings have been made public each time I have released the results of the President’s annual physical. President Biden has not seen a neurologist outside of his annual physical.”
The letter concluded with O’Connor noting that Cannard “was chosen for this responsibility not because he is a movement disorder specialist, but because he is a highly trained and highly regarded neurologist.”
There were two other points O’Connor raised that directly refute the idea that Cannard was tasked with treating Biden for Parkinson’s, as the Times article implied. First, that Biden’s physical this year found no signs of the disease, as O’Connor’s comprehensive report at the time explained. Second, that Cannard, as the neurologist for the White House Medical Unit, worked in support of the “thousands” of active-duty and former military service members who work for the White House, many of whom “experience neurological issues related to their service.”
Even aside from that explanation, Cannard’s visits were not exceptional given the number of known visits he made during the Obama administration. Visitor records maintained by the National Archives show 64 visits from 2012 through 2016, including a White House tour and Cannard’s attendance at a holiday party. There are no public records from the Trump administration.
O’Connor’s letter notes that “[p]rior to the [coronavirus] pandemic, and following its end,” Cannard “has held regular Neurology Clinics at the White House Medical Clinic” in support of those service members. The national emergency related to the pandemic ended in May 2023; besides a November 2022 meeting at the White House, Cannard’s visits resumed in July 2023.
It’s worth noting that Biden was not in the White House for three of Cannard’s 10 recorded visits during this administration, two of which occurred on the same day. That includes the November 2022 visit, when Biden was in Bali, and visits in August and November when Biden was in Nevada and San Francisco, respectively. This obviously supports the idea that Cannard’s practice involves individuals besides the president.
To an extent, this controversy is a function of the White House’s approach to information about the president. It lost trust when the extent of Biden’s issues were made apparent during the debate — however aberrant that occasion might have been. The White House has offered extensive documentation of Biden’s physicals, but it’s understandable why reporters would be wary of taking its presentations at face value.
In this case, though, barring remarkable dishonesty from O’Connor — who indicated in his letter that Biden has not seen a neurologist since his physical that found no indication of Parkinson’s — the focus on Cannard appears to have been misplaced.
