NBC News published a story today about the president’s age and how his team plans to deal with the issue. The most interesting part of the story is probably the glimpse it gives behind the scenes when Biden recently tripped at an Air Force graduation.

“The Democratic Party needs to be responsive to what people are saying about Biden and their concerns that they have with his age,” said one congressional Democrat, speaking on condition of anonymity to talk freely about the president’s fitness. “The number of text messages that I got after the president fell … I mean, my phone was blowing up. People are like, ‘Oh, this is so bad.’”…

Advisers recognize this dynamic as well as the political cost of the next awkward moment.

They gave a collective groan when Biden fell at the Air Force Academy, knowing the episode wouldn’t soon be forgotten. It turns out the sandbag had been camouflaged so that it would blend in, making it easier to miss, a senior White House aide said.

I don’t know if the sandbag was camouflaged or if that’s just an excuse. The photo I’ve seen (above) shows a dark sandbag on a light grey stage. In any case, a younger person would automatically adjust their stride to avoid falling. Biden couldn’t do that. But as you probably imagined, Democrats were freaking out behind the scenes when it happened, realizing it looked “so bad.”

The fall at the Air Force graduation also led directly to another change in the White House’s approach. Since then, his team is minimizing the chances of his next fall being caught on camera.

An iconic image of the modern presidency is the chief executive walking up the stairs to a majestic Air Force One, then turning at the doorway and waving. More and more, Biden is forgoing the long staircase for the shorter stairway that takes him up through the plane’s belly…

Biden’s use of the shorter staircase, which, of course, reduces the risk of a televised fall that goes viral, has more than doubled since Biden’s tumble at the commencement ceremony, according to an analysis by NBC News. In the weeks prior to tripping onstage, Biden used the shorter set of stairs to get on and off the presidential aircraft 37% of the time. In the past seven weeks he’s used them 84% of the time, or 31 out of the 37 times he’s gotten on and off the plane.

He still has to go up the same number of stairs to get to the upper level of the plane, but now half the stairs are inside the plane where the cameras can’t see. If he falls there, we just won’t hear about it. What are the odds that he’s already fallen behind the scenes and staffers are just keeping it quiet?

NBC also takes note of another change involving Biden’s schedule on foreign trips. On two recent trips, Biden was MIA for dinners with his counterparts. The White House excuse is that he had too much work keeping him busy to attend those dinners.

A White House deputy national security adviser tells NBC that Biden doesn’t really need to socialize with foreign dignitaries because he’s been around so long he knows them all already. That’s a convenient excuse but it seems to me the reality is probably that Biden just isn’t capable of keeping up after a long day and his team doesn’t want anyone to know it.

There is one elected official who says bluntly what most Americans are thinking about all of this:

“As someone who just turned 80, I strongly believe that we need someone younger, whether it’s on the Democratic side or the Republican side,” said Dan Coats, a former director of national intelligence in the Trump administration who once served with Biden in the Senate. “The weight of the world falls on the shoulders of the president, and right now, we have two disabled presidents,” Coats added, referring to Biden and Trump. “Age plays a major factor in this, and people have to think about what the next generation will provide.”

I agree with him on both points. Trump is clearly doing better than Biden at this point but that’s because he’s four years younger. If elected in 2024, he could very well be facing the same kind of decline midway through his term.

But he’s not the president right now, Biden is. Given the state that Biden is in right now, it makes zero sense to believe that he’s capable of doing this for another five years. Anyone who says he can is being a pure partisan and not thinking rationally. I doubt Biden’s own team actually thinks he can do it. Frankly, I wonder if they haven’t already made peace with the idea that, one way or another, Kamala Harris will finish out Biden’s 2nd term. They know she has zero chance of winning the election herself, but if Biden can drag her over the line then we’re all stuck with her should he become to incapacitated.

One day, several years from now, we’ll all find out that this situation was much worse than it appeared in public. The people close to Biden are still keeping quiet about it for now because he’s the president but the moment he’s not there will be books full of stories about what people really saw behind the scenes.