With less than a month left now in Joe Biden’s presidency, it might seem pointless to discuss yet again the president’s cognitive fitness for office. But there are two reasons that discussion shouldn’t yet be over:

One, there are serious questions right now about who is actually making decisions in the White House — questions driven home by a devastating Wall Street Journal report last month indicating that Biden’s age-related cognitive decline started much earlier and has been much deeper than has ever been acknowledged by the administration.

And, two, that continued lack of acknowledgment, even now, by White House insiders and top Democrats is adding to the already-incalculable damage the party has done to its credibility with the American public.

If Democrats are to have any chance of regaining the majority in at least one chamber of Congress in 2026 to put the brakes on the dangerous president who will be sworn in next month, that trust must be restored. That must start with the frank admission that Biden and his circle have long been lying to the American people about the critical issue of his cognitive fitness.

This editorial page suggested early on that Biden should have eschewed any attempt at reelection because of concerns about his age. “For his legacy, his party and his country,” we wrote in April 2023, “Biden should strongly consider the historic step of announcing that he will retire after his current term.”

In that and subsequent editorials, we warned that by seeking a second term amid increasingly obvious signs of cognitive decline, Biden risked ushering in a second Donald Trump administration. And now here we sit, weeks away from that catastrophic outcome.

Trump might have won last month in any case, but he was surely helped by Biden’s decision to stay in the race until his disastrous debate performance in June forced him out and left Democrats scrambling to build an 11th-hour campaign under a new standard bearer. With a normal primary and more time, Vice President Kamala Harris or some other Democrat might have fared better on Nov. 5.

Among the issues Harris never could put to rest was the now-obvious fact that she, along with the rest of the administration, had hidden Biden’s declining condition from the public.

That’s hardly news to anyone anymore, but the Journal’s report adds previously unknown scope and detail to the issue. Based on scores of interviews with those around the president, including sitting congressional Democrats, it charts how Biden’s team walled him off from even top lawmakers and cabinet members from the earliest months of his presidency.

“To adapt the White House around the needs of a diminished leader, they told visitors to keep meetings focused,” reports the Journal. “Interactions with senior Democratic lawmakers and some cabinet members … were infrequent or grew less frequent. Some legislative leaders had a hard time getting the president’s ear at key moments, including ahead of the U.S.’s disastrous pullout from Afghanistan.”

That botched withdrawal, which cost more than a dozen American lives, came after the then-chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Adam Smith, D-Washington, tried to warn the White House about defects in its plan. Though Smith was a key congressional figure from Biden’s own party, with deep knowledge on the region, he couldn’t get Biden on the phone, the Journal reported.

The piece outlines numerous other instances in which those who would normally have — and need — presidential access were prevented from directly communicating with Biden. As early as the spring of 2021, it reported, planned meetings were being routinely rescheduled around what one insider called Biden’s “good days and bad days.”

What’s most striking about the report is its multiple, consistent, patently implausible denials by current Biden staffers that he has mentally declined and that they are shielding his condition from public (and even private) view.

We get it. Having stuck with their official line for this long, acknowledging the coverup now would be an embarrassing turn indeed. But continuing to foist this obvious lie on a public that doesn’t remotely buy it further damages what’s left of Biden’s legacy.

A little last-minute honesty from Biden on his way into the history books — and perhaps an apology as well — might salvage some of that legacy. It might also help his damaged party move past this issue to face the far more dire national threat that will soon occupy the White House.

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