New York magazine is claiming that there has been an ongoing "conspiracy of silence" to hide from the American people President Joe Biden's mental decline. 

The outlet claimed as much in a piece that it published on July 4, 2024, titled, The Conspiracy of Silence to Protect Joe Biden: The president's mental decline was like a dark family secret for many elite supporters. 

The article was written by Washington correspondent Olivia Nuzzi.

Suffice it to say that Nuzzi's article has already stirred up quite a bit of controversy.

The claim:

According to Nuzzi, insiders have known about Biden's health condition for some time now.

She wrote:

In January, I began hearing similar stories from Democratic officials, activists, and donors. All people who supported the president and were working to help reelect him to a second term in office. Following encounters with the president, they had arrived at the same concern: Could he really do this for another four years? Could he even make it to Election Day?

Nuzzi goes on to write that "these people were of a similar social strata. They lived and socialized in Washington, New York, and Los Angeles. They did not wish to come forward with their stories. They did not want to blow a whistle."

Instead, she wrote that "they wished that they could whistle past what they knew and emerge in November victorious and relieved, having helped avoid another four years of Trump. What would happen after that? They couldn’t think that far ahead."

Nuzzi claims to have witnessed a lot of this herself. In fact, she says that, on one particular occasion, Biden looked so bad - "something not of this earth" - that his poor debate performance actually exceeded her expectations.

The backlash and the magazine's response

Many have criticized Nuzzi for the piece, pointing out that, by waiting to publish this piece until now, Nuzzi, herself, actually participated in the "conspiracy of silence."

Both the magazine and Nuzzi, however, have pushed back on the criticism.

The magazine, through a spokesperson, simply said, "This is a deeply reported feature that required time and care to publish. We stand by our story."

Nuzzi, on the other hand, wrote:

I work on most of my stories for months. This piece is about a conspiracy of silence that made people reluctant to talk. I’ve been chasing down what I heard since January. That’s how long reporting takes. Debate changed people’s calculations about how candid they would be, and even then not on the record.

Not everyone, however, is buying this explanation.