The House committee tasked with writing the U.S. tax code is meeting on Tuesday afternoon to advance one of the most significant portions of President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill."

A sweeping piece of legislation unveiled by the House Ways & Means Committee on Monday would follow through on Trump's campaign promises to eliminate taxes on tips and overtime pay, as well as permanently extending the president's 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), among other provisions.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has said he wants House Republicans to pass their version of Trump's bill by Memorial Day or "shortly thereafter," as he told Fox News Digital in an interview late last month.

House and Senate Republicans are working on Trump's agenda via the budget reconciliation process, which allows the party in power to sideline the minority by lowering the Senate's threshold for passage to a simple majority, provided the legislation at hand deals with spending, taxes or the national debt.

ANTI-ABORTION PROVIDER MEASURE IN TRUMP'S 'BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL' COULD SPARK HOUSE GOP REBELLION

Ways & Means Committee lawmakers are expected to meet for at least several hours on Tuesday to mark up debate on the bill. 

It could go even longer, however. A Ways & Means Committee markup meeting in 2021, when Democrats were trying to pass Build Back Better, lasted over 35 hours over four days due to Republicans dragging the process out in opposition to then-President Joe Biden's progressive tax policies.

Democrats are expected to put up an aggressive fight on Tuesday as well, having already accused Trump of trying to cut taxes for the wealthy while gutting critical programs for low-income Americans.

Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., a member of the committee, posted on X on Monday, "Going over line-by line last minute 389-page amendment to the Republican tax bill in our committee today. They have provisions that touch everyone: the richest people get huge tax cuts, working people lose their healthcare and future generations get the bill because it adds $5 trillion to the national debt!"

However, Republicans have insisted their tax bill champions the working and middle classes, pointing to Trump's elimination of tips on tax and overtime pay as evidence points.

A portion released by the House Ways & Means Committee over the weekend would increase the current maximum Child Tax Credit from $2,000 to $2,500. Trump's TCJA had doubled the maximum from $1,000 to $2,000 in 2017.

It would also boost the maximum deduction for qualified business income, a tax provision known as 199A, from 20% to 22%. That would largely affect small business owners whose entities are taxed under individual income tax rates.

Trump's promise to eliminate taxes on Social Security for retirees is tackled via giving seniors a higher standard deduction.

"It puts the interests of low-income, working families ahead of the wealthy by expanding tax relief to those who need it the most – including the President’s priorities of no tax on tips and overtime pay and additional relief for America’s seniors," House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., said in a statement.

The legislation also cracks down on big colleges and universities, including Ivy Leagues like Harvard University, which are locked in a battle over free speech with the White House. It is targeting those larger schools with higher excise taxes, which are federal duties paid on net earnings of the schools' investments.

That rate is currently 1.4%, but the legislation would bring it to as high as 21% for the largest schools, like Harvard and Yale University.

HOUSE REPUBLICANS RELEASE TAX PLAN FOR TRUMP'S 'BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL'

The nearly 400-page legislation must pass the Ways & Means Committee on Tuesday before being added back to a larger legislative framework, which will include similar bills from 10 other House committees dealing with policies under their jurisdiction.

The House Energy & Commerce Committee, for instance, is also meeting on Tuesday afternoon to advance its portion of the bill. The broad-ranging committee has jurisdiction over Medicaid, Medicare, energy production and telecommunications.

The House Agriculture Committee, which oversees federal food programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, is meeting Tuesday evening to advance its portion.

The full House and Senate must pass identical versions of the final bill before it gets to Trump's desk for a signature.

Fox News' Tyler Olson contributed to this report.

A small nodule was found in the prostate of former President Joe Biden during a recent physical exam, according to media reports. 

The discovery "necessitated further evaluation," the Associated Press reported Tuesday, citing a spokesperson. 

A spokesperson for Biden did not immediately respond Tuesday to multiple requests for comment from Fox News Digital. 

During his presidency, Biden had a "cancerous" skin lesion removed from his chest, according to the White House.  

BIDEN AIDES ALLEGEDLY FRETTED THEN-PRESIDENT WOULD NEED WHEELCHAIR IF RE-ELECTED, NEW BOOK REVEALS 

Former White House physician Kevin O'Connor said in February 2023 that skin tissue was removed during a health assessment Biden received and was sent for a biopsy, which revealed it was cancerous.   

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"As expected, the biopsy confirmed that the small lesion was basal cell carcinoma. All cancerous tissue was successfully removed. The area around the biopsy site was treated presumptively with electrodessication and curettage at the time of biopsy. No further treatment is required," Biden's doctor wrote in a memo. 

"The site of the biopsy has healed nicely and the President will continue dermatologic surveillance as part of his ongoing comprehensive healthcare," O'Connor also wrote. 

Fox News Digital’s Adam Sabes and Brandon Gillespie contributed to this report. 

The nation's wealthiest residents saw their billions grow even larger in the years following the COVID-19 pandemic due to policies from the Federal Reserve that have deepened the chasm of income inequality, economic experts report. 

"If you look at the amount of federal regulation, the amount of federal taxes, if anything… the economy has gotten less friendly toward big business, and toward rich people," economist Peter St. Onge told Fox News Digital in a May phone interview. "What's actually been happening is that the Fed has been driving income inequality. And, I think for a long time, Republicans were sort of in denial – not just Republicans, but sort of free market types were in denial – and they didn't want to talk about income equality." 

"I think they should absolutely talk about it, because what's causing it is not free markets," he said. "It's something that I think everybody should oppose, which is government manipulation of the monetary system."

St. Onge was reacting to data showing that billionaires' share of the GDP increased from 14.1% in 2020 to 21.1% in 2025, as reported by Johns Hopkins University economic professor Steve Hanke. 

JPMorgan Chase’s private bank estimated that the number of billionaires in the U.S. increased from 1,400 in 2021 to nearly 2,000 as of 2024, the Wall Street Journal reported in April. 

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The Federal Reserve is America's central bank, which sets monetary policies and oversees banks. It acts independently, meaning it does not require approval from the president or Congress when enacting policies. 

St. Onge explained to Fox News Digital that "debt is a rich man's game" and that billionaires have benefited financially since the pandemic as the Fed worked to "manipulate interest rates" down below market value, which subsidized loans. 

"During COVID, you could get a mortgage for, you know, three, three and a half percent, when inflation was running higher than that," he explained. "You were literally being paid to borrow money, which is not a free market outcome.… So it makes loans cheap and the rich overwhelmingly borrow money." 

ELON MUSK WARNS FEDERAL RESERVE MAY FACE DOGE AUDIT

The average debt for the top 5% of Americans sits at about $600,000, he said, while the average debt for the vast majority of Americans is roughly $74,000. 

"That's about a nine times difference," he said of the data. "So if you make loans too cheap, you are giving nine times more money to rich people.… If you make loans cheap, you're functionally giving $9 to rich people for every $1 to give everybody else." 

Assets are even more skewed, he explained, with the top 5% of Americans holding $7.8 million in assets compared to the average American's $62,000 – notching 130 times the difference between the two demographics, he said. 

"The value of a stock or even a house are based on the future stream of income, and those are all discounted by the interest rate," he said. "And so pretty close to mechanically, if you cut interest rates in half – long-term interest rates – you are doubling the value of stocks."

St. Onge pointed to the American economy in the 1970s and the early 2000s, outlining that growth "took a big step down" in the 2000s while asset values, such as housing prices and the stock market, skyrocketed. 

"The reason is because, since the 1970s, the Fed has very aggressively held rates low, and so this has caused all those assets to go up. So stocks have gone up, housing has gone up. And again, those are rich men's games. Overwhelmingly, people who own stocks are rich. Housing is even more skewed."

"So if you've got a nine times difference on loans between the bottom 50% and the top 5%, and then you've got 130 times on assets, then the Fed manipulating rates down – they're not doing it to make rich people rich, hopefully – but that's sort of the consequence of doing that," he said. "Holding long-term interest rates low is to shower money on rich people and to shower it in proportion to which they're rich, right? So the most extreme version of that is going to be billionaires." 

FEDERAL RESERVE HOLDS KEY INTEREST RATE STEADY AMID ECONOMIC UNCERTAINTY

Economist Steve Hanke discussed how the Federal Reserve has fanned the flame of income inequality through its policies at a conference earlier in 2025 at the Mises Institute, an economics-focused think tank based out of Alabama.  

"In 2020, billionaires' share of GDP was 14.1%. Now, it's 21.1%. The Fed increased the money supply, asset prices went up, & guess who owns the assets? Billionaires. By ignoring the money supply, the Fed is an ENGINE OF INCOME INEQUALITY," he posted to X in April of his findings. 

"Take the Federal Reserve’s excessive money printing during the pandemic," Hanke said in an interview published by the think tank in April. "The transmission mechanism of monetary policy roughly dictates that changes in the money supply are followed by changes in asset prices in 1–9 months’ time, changes in real economic activity in 6–18 months’ time, and finally changes in the price level in 12–24 months’ time."

"Thanks to the Fed’s helicopter money drops beginning with COVID, the annual growth rate of the US broad money supply peaked at 18.1% per year in May 2021," he added. "Lo and behold, the transmission mechanism followed – the S&P 500 reached a local maximum in December 2021 (6 months later), and inflation peaked at 9.1% per year in July 2022 (14 months later)."  

US JOB GROWTH COOLED IN APRIL AMID ECONOMIC UNCERTAINTY

The result, he said, was skyrocketing wealth inequality to the tune of billionaires increasing their share of the GDP by 7.6 percentage points in just four years. 

St. Onge said the Fed's policies have been political in nature, while remarking he would welcome "naive" Democrats who bang the proverbial campaign drum of income inequality to jump onto the "end the Fed bandwagon."

"They have a naive argument where they look at rich people and they say, ‘Hey, this is so terrible. We live in this dog-eat-dog jungle of an economy,'" St. Onge said of Democrats who campaign on income inequality. "And that is inaccurate," he added, citing Federal Reserve policies that have amplified income inequality. 

On the opposite side of the political coin, Vice President JD Vance has railed against the Biden administration and "Wall Street barons" for policies he said have hurt the working class. During his acceptance speech after officially becoming the vice presidential nominee in July, Vance said an affordability crisis is strangling the working class, while touting that the Trump administration would end economic "catering to Wall Street."

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"Wall Street barons crashed the economy and American builders went out of business," Vance said from Milwaukee in summer 2024. "As tradesmen scrambled for jobs, houses stopped being built. The lack of good jobs, of course, led to stagnant wages. And then the Democrats flooded this country with millions of illegal aliens. So citizens had to compete – with people who shouldn't even be here – for precious housing. Joe Biden's inflation crisis, my friends, is really an affordability crisis." 

The Federal Reserve Board declined comment when approached by Fox Digital regarding St. Onge's and Hanke's remarks. 

President Donald Trump has not even hit the four-month mark yet in his second tour of duty in the White House, but that is not stopping Democrats from already looking ahead to the 2028 presidential campaign.

The very early moves in the next White House race by potential presidential contenders are clearly underway.

The latest comes from 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, who later served as Transportation secretary in former President Joe Biden's administration. He is headlining a town hall with veterans on Tuesday in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Iowa's caucuses for half a century kicked off both major political parties' presidential nominating calendars until the Democratic National Committee (DNC) demoted the Hawkeye State on their 2024 schedule.

TRUMP'S APPROVAL RATINGS SLIDE, BUT DEMOCRATIC PARTY'S POLLS HIT ALL-TIME LOWS

Another potential contender, two-term Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, late last month, gave the keynote address at a major state party fundraising gala in New Hampshire, the state that for a century has held the first primary in the race for the White House.

Even though he says he is not laying the groundwork for a 2028 presidential run, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore later this month will headline a major state party fundraising dinner in South Carolina, which the DNC anointed last cycle as their lead-off contest on the primary calendar.

Also making noise is two-term Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who said recently he would consider running for president if he felt he could successfully unite the country.

WHAT BERNIE SANDERS SAID IN A FOX NEWS DIGITAL INTERVIEW 

Additionally, progressive firebrand Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York grabbed plenty of attention the past couple of months, co-headlining a slew of large rallies across the country with longtime progressive champion Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, which sparked plenty of 2028 speculation.

The Democratic Party has been in the political wilderness since last November's election setbacks, when Republicans won back control of the White House and the Senate and defended their fragile House majority. Republicans additionally made gains among Black and Hispanic voters as well as younger voters, all traditional members of the Democratic Party's base.

Since Trump's return to power, an increasingly angry and energized base of Democrats has been pushing for party leaders to take a stronger stand in pushing back against the president's sweeping and controversial agenda during the opening months of his second administration.

Democrats are not only looking ahead to next year's midterms, when they hope to make ballot box gains, but also to the next presidential race.

"There was a sense of hopelessness earlier this year among Democrats, as Trump came in with his wrecking ball, and it seemed like there was nothing but futile opposition to him," longtime Democratic strategist and communication Chris Moyer told Fox News. "So thinking about a presidential race with potential candidates is a way to get some hope back and look towards a future that doesn't include Trump."

Moyer, a veteran of a handful of Democratic presidential campaigns, said the race is "wide open, and it won’t be long before we see clear maneuvering from a litany of candidates."

The results of the 2026 midterm elections will have a major impact on the shape of the next White House race, too.

For now, however, here is an early look at Democrats considered to be potential 2028 presidential contenders.

After lying low as the Biden administration came to a close, former Vice President Kamala Harris has picked up the political pace of late, including headlining a major DNC fundraiser last week in New York City.

Among her campaign options that she is weighing is a 2026 run for the open governor's seat in her home state of California and another bid in 2028 for the White House.

A source in the former vice president's political orbit confirmed to Fox News Digital two months ago that Harris had told allies she would decide by the end of summer on whether to launch a 2026 gubernatorial campaign.

Harris served as San Francisco district attorney, California attorney general and represented the Golden State in the U.S. Senate before joining Biden's 2020 ticket and winning election as vice president.

Additionally, Harris would be considered the clear frontrunner for governor in heavily blue California in the race to succeed term-limited Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom.

However, early polling in the 2028 Democratic nomination race indicates that Harris would be the frontrunner, thanks in part to her name recognition within her party.

While there are plenty of voices within the party who would like to move on from the Biden/Harris era following Trump's sweeping victory, and there is little history of Democrats yearning for past defeated presidential nominees, Trump has re-written the rules when it comes to defeated White House contenders making another run. 

Potential buyers' remorse of a second Trump administration could boost the 60-year-old Harris in the years to come.

The progressive "rock star" and best-known lawmaker among the so-called "Squad" of diverse House Democrats in October turned 35, the minimum age to run for president.

Some Democrats argue that a riveting messenger with star power is needed as the party's next nominee, and Ocasio-Cortez is guaranteed to grab plenty of attention if she ultimately decides to run.

There is also speculation the four-term federal lawmaker from New York City may primary challenge Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York when he is up for re-election in 2028.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom was a top surrogate for Biden during the president's re-election bid. With the blessing of the White House, the two-term California governor debated then-Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis last year on Fox News. 

Newsom's travels on behalf of Biden brought him to New Hampshire and South Carolina, two crucial early voting states on the Democratic Party's nominating calendar.

After Harris, his friend and fellow Californian, replaced Biden atop the Democrats' 2024 ticket, the governor continued — after a pause — his efforts to keep Trump from returning to the White House.

While Newsom and California's Democrat-dominated legislature took action to "Trump-proof" the Golden State, the governor has also worked with Trump on key matters, including January's wildfires that devastated parts of metropolitan Los Angeles.

Newsom also appears to have moderated on some issues and invited well-known Trump allies Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon on his weekly podcast.

The 57-year-old Newsom, who is term-limited, completes his duties in Sacramento at the end of next year, right around the time the 2028 presidential election will start to heat up.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker has become a leading voice in the Democrats' opposition to Trump and has taken steps to Trump-proof his solidly blue state.

"You come for my people, you come through me," Pritzker told reporters of his efforts to protect Illinois.

Pritzker was also a high-profile surrogate on behalf of Biden and then Harris during the 2024 cycle. Those efforts brought Pritzker to Nevada, a general election battleground state and an early-voting Democratic presidential primary state, and New Hampshire.

Additionally, the governor's recent trip to New Hampshire sparked more 2028 buzz.

However, before he makes any decision about 2028, the 60-year-old governor must decide whether he will run in 2026 for a third term steering Illinois.

Two-term Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer grabbed plenty of attention and became a Democratic Party rising star in 2020 when she feuded with Trump over COVID-19 federal assistance and survived a foiled kidnapping attempt.

Trump, at the time, called her "that woman from Michigan."

Along with Newsom and Pritzker, Whitmer's name was floated as a possible replacement for Biden following his disastrous debate performance against Trump in late June, before the president endorsed Harris and the party instantly coalesced around the vice president.

Whitmer was a leading surrogate for Biden and then for Harris and made a big impression on Democratic activists during a stop this summer in New Hampshire on behalf of Harris.

However, Whitmer was criticized by some in her party for appearing to cozy up to Trump during a White House visit earlier this spring.

The 53-year-old governor is term-limited and will leave office after the end of next year.

Gov. Josh Shapiro, the 51-year-old first-term governor of Pennsylvania, was on Harris' short-list for vice presidential nominee.

Even though the vice president named Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, Shapiro remained a top surrogate on behalf of his party's 2024 national ticket. 

However, his two-day swing in New Hampshire during the final full week ahead of Election Day did raise some eyebrows and 2028 speculation.

After Harris lost battleground Pennsylvania to Trump, there was plenty of talk within the party that Harris had made the wrong choice for her running mate.

Shapiro, who has a track record of taking on the first Trump administration as Pennsylvania attorney general, is expected to play a similar role with Trump back in the White House.

The governor will be up for re-election in 2026.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore is considered by many to be another Democratic Party rising star.

The 46-year-old Army veteran, Rhodes Scholar and CEO of the charitable organization the Robin Hood Foundation during the coronavirus pandemic was elected two years ago.

Even though Moore said in a recent interview on "The View" that he's "not running" in 2028, speculation persists, fueled in part because of his upcoming stop in South Carolina.

Moore will be up for re-election in 2026. 

Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who surpassed expectations during his 2020 Democratic presidential nomination run, was a very active surrogate on behalf of Biden and later Harris, during the 2024 cycle.

He helped raise a lot of money for the Democratic Party ticket, including heading a top-dollar fundraiser in New Hampshire.

The 43-year-old former South Bend, Indiana, mayor and former naval officer who served in the war in Afghanistan, is considered one of the party's biggest and brightest stars. He was known as a top communicator for the administration, including making frequent appearances on Fox News.

Fueling buzz about a potential 2028 presidential run, Buttigieg passed on a 2026 Senate bid in his adopted home state of Michigan and made a high-profile stop in Iowa on Tuesday.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, 47, who was elected governor in 2019 and then re-elected in 2023 in red-state Kentucky, was also on Harris' longer list for potential running mates.

Beshear made plenty of new friends and contacts as he ventured to New Hampshire last month to headline the state Democratic Party's annual fall fundraising gala.

He served as Kentucky's attorney general before running for governor.

Beshear said last week in an interview with local state WDRB that "if you'd asked me a couple years ago if this is something I'd consider, I probably wouldn't have. But I don't want to leave a broken country to my kids. And so, if I'm somebody that can bring this nation together, hopefully find some common ground, it's something I'll consider."

Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, 55, is a major player in Washington as the Democratic minority in the Senate fights back against the second Trump administration.

Warnock, who won Senate elections in 2020 and 2022 in battleground Georgia, served as senior pastor at the famed Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Martin Luther King Jr. once preached.

He is up for re-election in the Senate in 2028.

Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, who ran for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, is considered one of the party's most talented orators.

Thanks to his 2020 run, Booker made plenty of friends and allies in such early states as New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Booker made headlines six weeks ago by delivering a record-breaking 25-hour and 5-minute marathon speech from the floor of the Senate. The speech protested the sweeping and controversial moves so far by Trump during his second administration, as well as the operations of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency. 

The 56-year-old senator is up for re-election in 2026.

Since the November election, Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut has been very vocal about the steps Democrats need to take to win back working-class voters.

First elected to the House in 2006 and later to the Senate in 2012, the 51-year-old Murphy cruised to re-election this year by nearly 20 points, which means he would not have to decide between a re-election bid and a White House run in 2028.

Rep. Ro Khanna, 48, was a tireless surrogate on behalf of Biden and then Harris. 

He has been a regular visitor to New Hampshire in the past couple of years, including a high-profile debate last year against then-GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.

Khanna has grabbed plenty of attention so far this year as he has held town halls in Republican-controlled congressional districts and targeted Vice President JD Vance with events in the vice president's home state of Ohio and at Yale Law School, where both politicians earned their legal degrees.

The 57-year-old sports TV personality, sports radio host, sports journalist, and actor has grabbed a ton of attention this year as he has mulled a White House run and has even grabbed Trump's attention.

Another potential contender with plenty of star power is Mark Cuban.

The billionaire business mogul and part-owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks’ was a high-profile surrogate for Harris during her presidential election campaign.

Former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, 67, who at the beginning of the year finished up his eighth and final year as governor, took his name out of the Harris running mate speculation early in the process last summer.

Cooper served 16 years as North Carolina's attorney general before winning election as governor.

The former governor is being heavily recruited by Democrats to try and flip a GOP-held Senate seat in North Carolina in next year's midterms.

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, 65, is halfway through her second term steering New Mexico.

The governor, a former member of Congress, was a high-profile and busy surrogate on behalf of Harris during the final weeks of the 2024 campaign.

The 61-year-old Minnesota governor, who served as Harris' running mate, has two years remaining in his second term in office.

While the vice presidential nominee's energy and enthusiasm on the campaign trail this year impressed plenty of Democratic strategists, the final results of the election will make any potential future national run for Tim Walz difficult.

Walz has said he is not thinking of 2028, but he has been very busy so far this year heading events across the country, and an upcoming stop in South Carolina is fueling more White House buzz.

Three other names keep coming up — Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey and former Chicago mayor, former congressman, former White House chief of staff and former ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel, and Sen. Ruben Gallego of battleground Arizona.

Former President Joe Biden's aides privately discussed the possibility of the president needing to use a wheelchair if he were re-elected in the 2024 race, as his physical deterioration spiraled in 2023 and 2024, a new book claims. 

"Biden's physical deterioration — most apparent in his halting walk — had become so severe that there were internal discussions about putting the president in a wheelchair, but they couldn't do so until after the election," an upcoming book called "Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again" states. 

CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios reporter Alex Thompson authored the upcoming book, which is set to be released Tuesday and is just the latest in a series of recent political books detailing the unprecedented 2024 presidential election, where calls mounted for Biden's exit due to concerns over his mental acuity and age. 

"Given Biden's age, (his physician Kevin O'Connor) also privately said that if he had another bad fall, a wheelchair might be necessary for what could be a difficult recovery," the authors wrote. 

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Concerns over Biden's physical agility worsened in June 2023, when the president tripped over a sandbag at the Air Force Academy's graduation ceremony, Axios reported. 

BIDEN'S FALL AT AIR FORCE COMMENCEMENT DRAWS CONCERN, MOCKERY: 'THIS ISN'T FAIR TO ANYONE'

"He’s fine. There was a sandbag on stage while he was shaking hands," a White House official posted to X at the time, while critics of the president denounced the fall as "sad" and an example of "elder abuse" of the president. 

Biden's aides worked to create shorter walking paths for the president — and insisted that he use handrails while walking on staircases and wear sneakers — and took more care in guiding him while in public as the 2024 campaign cycle heated up, Axios reported of the book. 

Biden's mental acuity had been under conservatives' microscope since before the 2020 election, with concerns heightening in February 2024 when special counsel Robert Hur, who was investigating Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents as vice president, announced he would not recommend criminal charges against Biden for possessing classified materials after his vice presidency, calling Biden "a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory." 

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Concern over his mental acuity hit a fever pitch in June 2024, when Biden took the debate stage to face off against then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Biden's debate performance was seen as a failure, with traditional allies soon joining conservatives in their concern over the president's health in the context of encouraging Biden to pass the mantle to a younger generation of U.S. leaders. 

Biden dropped out at the end of July 2024, giving his successor for the nomination, former Vice President Kamala Harris, just over 100 days to rally support. Trump and Vice President JD Vance secured the election win after locking down support in the top seven battleground states. 

EX-BIDEN AIDE SAYS FORMER PRESIDENT WAS 'FATIGUED, BEFUDDLED, AND DISENGAGED' PRIOR TO JUNE DEBATE: BOOK

A Biden spokesperson told Axios when asked about the claims in the upcoming book that, "Yes, there were physical changes as he got older, but evidence of aging is not evidence of mental incapacity."

The spokesperson defended that Biden's "stiffened gait" seen while he was in office was due "in part, by wear and tear to his spine — but that no special treatment was necessary and that it had not worsened."

"We are still waiting for someone, anyone, to point out where Joe Biden had to make a presidential decision or make a presidential address where he was unable to do his job because of mental decline. In fact, the evidence points to the opposite — he was a very effective president," the unidentified spokesperson told Fox Digital. 

Fox News Digital reached out to Biden's office Tuesday morning for additional comment on the matter but did not immediately receive a reply.