U.S. President Joe Biden's doctor said the 81-year-old man, whose mental sharpness has been challenged on numerous occasions, remains "fit for duty" after a medical checkup before the election.
"He continues to be fit for duty and fully executes all of his responsibilities without any exemptions or accommodations," White House doctor Kevin O'Connor said in a summary.
Last week, Biden made headlines after referring to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin as a "crazy SOB," a remark that triggered angry responses from the Kremlin.
"We have a crazy SOB like that guy Putin, and others, and we always have to worry about nuclear conflict, but the existential threat to humanity is climate," Biden said in a brief speech at the event in San Francisco that was attended by a small group of reporters.
In a hot mic slip in January 2022, Biden similarly called a Fox News journalist a "son of a bitch."
Earlier this month, he claimed meeting with dead French, and German leaders.
He also mixed up his rival for the Republican nomination, Nikki Haley, with former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Last year he said Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban was the leader of Türkiye and warned that the United States was on the verge of "World War II," which ended in 1945.
Biden has long been fighting attacks from the right and also some within his own party that he is too old to be president. As he gears up for the November election against Trump – a man he says poses an existential threat to U.S. democracy – Biden is campaigning on his long experience and his stewardship of a fast-recovering, post-COVID economy.
"I'm the most qualified person in the United States to be president and finish the job," he said in the late-evening remarks.
