Former ABC News correspondent says network shut down his Biden health story pitch during admin

Former ABC News correspondent Terry Moran revealed Monday that his former network rejected his 2023 pitch to cover former President Joe Biden's declining health and frailty after he witnessed it firsthand on a trip to Japan.

Moran said the former president was clearly in declining health by the end of his term in the Oval Office, and that his voice was merely a "whisper" by the final year. 

"In late 2023, early 2024, you know, it was pretty clear that Biden was fading rather quickly," Moran told The Daily Beast in a podcast. "I had actually traveled with him to Japan in the spring of 2023 and kind of eyeballed him there, and I thought, 'Okay, he’s still functioning, but man, he’s frail.’ He looked like he’d blow away in a stiff wind."

Moran said that trip made him want to cover Biden's health because it seemed like a legitimate story for Americans to be aware of, but that his pitch would cover the story as "gently" and "respectfully" as possible.

"I tried to do the story of Biden’s health before anybody else did in network, because I’d seen it, and I got shut down very hard," Moran said. "It was like, ‘You know, this is [a] legit issue for Americans to be interested in. I'm not a doctor. I'm not diagnosing. But we all know what we know when we see people fading. We all have had grandparents. We're all getting old ourselves. And so there's no doubt about it, this is a legitimate concern for the voters of America."

The former correspondent claimed he was shut down abruptly by senior leadership at the network, who told him that Biden's health was "the medical unit’s business, not yours."

The conversation regarding the former president's health comes after Moran departed ABC News last year following a social media post that attacked President Donald Trump and White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller.

Moran worked as the senior national correspondent for ABC News, and had been part of the network since 1997.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.