During his tenure in the White House, former President Joe Biden exhibited signs of physical and cognitive decline that were impossible -- except for many of his fellow Democrats -- to deny, but new evidence continues to emerge about just how serious things became.

As the New York Post reports, resurfaced notecards used by the ex-president reveal that he needed assistance in the form of words and pictures to identify even the most recognizable, high-profile members of his own party, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Cards' contents revealed

The recent revelations about Biden’s “palm cards” emerged amid a review of National Archives materials undertaken as part of a probe of the former president’s use of the autopen during his administration.

Mrs. Clinton’s presence on one of the cards stamped “PRESIDENT HAS SEEN” was attributable to her receipt of a Presidential Medal of Freedom in the last days of Biden’s term, and the paper aid explained that she had been “the Secretary of State in the Obama-Biden administration.”

Biden was also reminded via the card of the identity of film star Denzel Washington, as well as celebrity chef Jose Andres and philanthropist David Rubenstein.

Another card used during a celebration of high-volume judicial confirmations included photos of Senate leader Chuck Schumer and Majority Whip Dick Durbin, along with information regarding their specific roles in the upper chamber and the states from which they hailed.

Yet another palm card produced in the recent review includes a question from ABC News journalist Mary Bruce that was ultimately asked at a press availability, echoing a prior incident in which Biden was seen holding a card that featured the photo and name of a Los Angeles Times journalist who was apparently slated to ask the first question of the event, which she then did.

Standard practice or aiding a cover-up?

Biden’s defenders maintain that the use of palm cards by politicians is a time-tested practice that is not at all outside the norm, though in this instance, it only served to stoke the flames of controversy regarding the then-president’s cognitive status.

Indeed, it was not just Biden’s detractors who expressed alarm over the situation, as revelations earlier this year from Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s book Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again suggested that at least some of his backers inside the party were concerned as well.

As The Hill noted, no less than actor George Clooney was taken aback at a 2024 fundraiser when Biden failed to recognize who he was, despite his longtime backing of the Democratic Party, with the star later indicating that the president “appeared severely diminished” and noting that his steps were halting and he “had an aide guiding him by his arm.”

According to the book, “Other high-dollar attendees who posed for photographs with [Barack] Obama and Biden described Biden as slow and almost catatonic,” and “there were obvious brain freezes and clear signs of a mental slide” that some characterized as “terrifying.”

Recent congressional testimony from former Biden chief of staff Jeff Zients included an admission that, following the then-president’s disastrous June 2024 debate against Donald Trump, he urged White House physician Kevin O’Connor to make sure a “full medical workup”, inclusive of a cognitive exam, was conducted, as the New York Post noted separately.

Candor at last?

After four years of insistence from White House insiders and liberal media outlets alike that Americans should not believe their lying eyes when it came to Biden’s decline, perhaps the ongoing House Oversight Committee probe of the situation will finally expose the high-level deception that millions already understood was taking place.

Even MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, who claimed just a few months before the infamous debate that changed everything that America was seeing “the best Biden ever,” eventually admitted he was wrong, but whether a broader reckoning about what many view as one of the most serious cover-ups in American political history will occur, only time will tell.