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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🛫 Biden hasn't flown across the country as much as the last two presidents who used the trappings of the office — including Air Force One — to motivate supporters in battleground states and win re-election, according to a review by Axios.

• Biden is facing escalating questions from fellow Democrats on whether he has the stamina and acuity to continue in office, after a debate performance that focused attention on the limitations of the nation's oldest-ever president.

📝 His flight logs from the first six months of 2024 reveal a president with about three-quarters of former President Obama's travel during his re-election year in 2012, according to data compiled by Brendan Doherty, a U.S. Naval Academy professor and author of "The Rise of the President's Permanent Campaign."

• Biden is outpacing former President Trump's travel in 2020, but the latter was essentially grounded by the COVID-19 pandemic 2½ months into that year.
• ⚖️ Biden has visited more swing states than Trump this year, as Trump spent considerable time in court.

🎤 By the numbers: Biden held 90 domestic events outside the D.C. area through June 30.

• Trump did 50 events during the same period four years ago, holding 25 events in the first two months of 2020, before nonessential travel was discouraged.
• Obama held 120 events in the first six months of 2012.
• Former President George W. Bush also put Air Force One to use, headlining 102 events during the first six months of his re-election campaign in 2004.
• The numbers include official White House events, political rallies and private fundraisers. Not included: day trips to Virginia and Maryland suburbs of D.C. or visits to a president's second home.

🏃‍♂️ After his miserable debate night on June 27, Biden hit the road, holding seven events in four states over the next two days.

• This month he's held events in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and he plans to visit Michigan on Friday after the NATO summit in D.C.

🗣️ What they're saying: "Trump is barely campaigning, and every day whether he's golfing or getting in fights with himself online, he's forced to defend his toxic, losing Project 2025 agenda," said Kevin Munoz, a Biden campaign spokesperson.

• "There are a lot of days between now and Election Day, and the hard work of earning every single vote is far from over," he added.

🔭 Zoom out: Running for re-election as an incumbent comes with certain tactical advantages — including one most presidents try to exploit: the blue and white Boeing 747 known as Air Force One.

• Heading into the 2022 midterms, Biden wasn't the frequent flyer that his two predecessor were, using the jet far less than either Trump or Obama in their first midterms, Axios has reported.

🔬 Zoom in: Most of Biden's events in the first half of this year have been on the East Coast. That includes more than 13 appearances in Pennsylvania, a swing state crucial to his re-election.

• In the first half of 2012, Obama held 16 events in Florida, a state he needed to win — and did.

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Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) says this week is "critical" for Biden to allay voters' concerns about whether he can beat Donald Trump, adding that the "clock is ticking" for Biden to decide whether to stay in the presidential race.

• Murphy's comments on CNN's "State of the Union," along with similar comments today from Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who's running for Senate, follow a week in which Senate Democrats have been noticeably silent about whether Biden should abandon his re-election bid.
• 🎤 Biden's interview with ABC on Friday didn't allay voters' concerns about the viability of Biden's candidacy, Murphy said.
• "This week is going to be absolutely critical," Murphy said, adding that Biden needed to "show the country that he is still the old Joe Biden, one of the best retail politicians that this country has ever seen."
• ⏰ "I believe that he can do it, but … I do think the clock is ticking."

Schiff had a similar message for Biden. He urged the president to "seek out people with some distance and objectivity" as he assesses whether he can beat Trump.

• "Either he has to win overwhelmingly or he has to pass the torch to someone who can. It's as simple as that," Schiff said on NBC's "Meet the Press."