What you need to know about Biden’s White House doctor

It’s been more than a week since President Joe Biden ’s disastrous debate performance rocked Democrats' hopes to keep former President Donald Trump out of the White House.

While concerns from his own party have surged over the president’s cognitive decline, Biden has refused to heed calls to undergo neurological testing.

On Friday, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president rebuffed questions that he should consider listening to top Democratic leaders and take a cognitive test.

“Look. I have a cognitive test every single day. Every day I have that test. Everything I do,” Biden told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos during a 22-minute interview. “You know, not only am I campaigning, but I'm running the world. “

It appears unlikely that the president will bow to pressure anytime soon. Should he change his mind and submit to neurological testing, he would turn to Dr. Kevin O’Connor, who has been the president's personal physician since 2009.

Here are three things to know about the doctor who has the power to change the course of the 2024 election.

O’Connor and Biden have known each other for years, forging a connection based on mutual religious beliefs and similar upbringings, and now, 15 years of shared experiences. The two men are so close, that it was the doctor whom Beau Biden asked to look out for his dad “no matter what happens.”

In 2009, O’Connor became then-Vice President Biden’s personal White House physician. When Biden left the White House in 2017, O’Connor became the family’s personal physician. When Biden took office in 2021, the president brought the family doctor back with him to the White House.

Both men are rooted in Catholicism, and Biden made it a point to include his doctor in a rare 2021 meeting with Pope Francis. Neither man has an Ivy League pedigree, rare in the world they inhabit.

Joe Biden’s 2017 memoir recounts a story that offers a window into the two’s tight-knit relationship. O’Connor helped care for Beau when he was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2013. As Beau was wheeled into brain surgery, it was O’Connor he asked to look out for his father, “No matter what happens.” Take care of Pop,” the president’s son begged. “For real. Promise me. For real.”

It’s not the only time O’Connor is mentioned in Biden’s memoir.

The president also recounted a time when he canceled a political trip over O’Connor’s worries he wasn’t up to the task.

“I get it. It’s not good press. It’s embarrassing,” O’Connor told Biden, as the then-vice president debated attending the 2015 inauguration of the new president of Uruguay , despite battling sickness, according to Biden’s memoir. “But you know what else is embarrassing and not good press? Collapsing on camera.”

O’Connor’s close relationship with his patient was highlighted in another rare interview the doctor gave his alma mater’s publication when Biden was still vice president.

“I’ve never had a better commander than Joe Biden,” O’Connor told New York Tech. “All politics aside, he approaches his craft with such honor. He’s 100 percent ‘family first.’ He’s ‘genuinely genuine.’”

While some White House doctors have spent time in the public eye, O’Connor has remained in the background, never embracing the opportunity to talk to the press like some of his peers. Even when Biden was diagnosed with COVID-19 in 2022, the doctor declined to take questions at the White House briefing room podium.

Americans have yet to receive an answer from the White House doctor as to why he hasn’t tested the country’s most important patient for cognitive decline. O’Connor refused to tell the Washington Post the reason behind his decision, and the lack of transparency surrounding his dealings with the president has raised alarm bells for many, even in the president’s own party. Biden has also contradicted the White House's official claims at times, telling Democratic colleagues he had seen the doctor after the White House said he hadn’t. The White House later backtracked its claims, saying the president had received a “brief check” as opposed to a full physical.

During an interview O’Connor did for his alma mater, the White House physician comes across as affable and humble. The conversation also provides a revealing insight into O’Connor’s state of mind as he cares for Biden.

“Don’t forget where you come from,” he said during a conversation he recorded for the New York Institute of Technology’s College of Osteopathic Medicine. “I have no idea what I’m going to do next because I’ve never had a plan. Just hopefully, someone will notice I try really hard.”

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The doctor said his job is the “worst-day-in-your-life business.”

“Literally the whole world is going to second-guess it,” O’Connor told his alma mater, referring to decisions he makes as he cares for Biden.