Scoop: Inside Biden's event planning

For his events, President Biden's staffers prepare a short document with large print and photos that include his precise path to a podium, according to an event template the White House sends to staffers.

• Since the June 27 debate, some Democrats who've attended and helped set up Biden events have wondered whether his team's focus on minute details were to obscure the 81-year-old president's limitations — rather than just a reflection of a meticulous staff.
• 💰 "I staffed a simple fundraiser at a private residence, but they treated it like it was a NATO summit with his movements," according to a person who staffed a Biden event in the past 18 months.

📃 Before a presidential event, the White House sends event staffers a document to emulate when preparing their own materials for the president.

• One template — a copy of which was obtained by Axios — is short and simple, with one large picture of the event space on each page, accompanied by large text saying "View from podium" and "View from audience."
• In the five-page document, two pages have separate photos underneath "Walk to podium."

👀 The staffer who helped with the fundraiser told Axios: "It surprised me that a seasoned political pro like the president would need detailed verbal and visual instructions on how to enter and exit a room."

• A White House official told Axios: "If individuals are not accustomed to seeing advance teams work, that would be a common reaction, whoever the principal is."
• Two former aides who worked with Biden during his vice presidency said that at that time his preparation documents were different, and more often relied on site diagrams.

Reality check: Organizing presidential events — often called "advance work" — is intensive and detail-focused for every commander in chief.

• Presidential movements are planned down to every footstep in ways that the movements of a vice president often are not.

• Advance documents also have evolved since Biden was vice president, including the increased use of smartphone photographs.
• White House spokesperson Andrew Bates told Axios that "high levels of detail and precision are critical to presidential advance work — regardless of who is president — and these are basic approaches that are used by any modern advance team, including the vice president's office and agencies."

🔎 Many of Biden's seemingly ordinary practices are receiving fresh scrutiny after his debate performance, when he sometimes couldn't string together sentences and often had his mouth agape.

• Presidents frequently use Teleprompters, but Biden's use of them for even small events such as fundraisers has sparked worries among Democrats that his debate performance was not a one-off.

The event template's focus on the walk to a podium is notable, given recent attacks by Biden's political opponents.

• Republicans have tried to highlight videos in which Biden sometimes appears unsure of where to walk on- and offstage as a way to suggest he isn't mentally fit for office.

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