'The years have clearly taken a toll': Reporters from NBC, NYT question health of Robert Mueller

Greg P. | 10:45 AM on July 24, 2019

The New York Times is running a live commentary on the Mueller hearing and, so far, it’s a dud:

NYT colleagues reax to Mueller:@adamgoldmanNYT:
So far, this hearing is not revealing new ground…By tomorrow it could be forgotten in this frenetic news cycle.@maggieNYT:
Adam, I think you’re being generous with “by tomorrow.”

— Trip Gabriel (@tripgabriel) July 24, 2019

Even worse for Dems, the NYT’s Noah Weiland said out loud what everyone at home is seeing: This is not the same Robert Mueller as we’ve seen in past hearings:

.@noahweiland of NYT: "I haven’t seen a performance quite like this from Mueller. In 12 years as F.B.I. director, he gave plenty of clipped responses. But more often than not he was more rhetorically agile than anyone on the committees that were questioning him….

— Trip Gabriel (@tripgabriel) July 24, 2019

…And there was rarely a time when he even paused for a second after a question was asked. There was little searching in his eyes for answers. He rarely looked at notes."

From running commentary: https://t.co/fdo0719xcr

— Trip Gabriel (@tripgabriel) July 24, 2019

NBC’s Pete Williams noticed it, too:

.@PeteWilliamsNBC on the former special counsel’s testimony so far: "The years have clearly taken a toll on the Bob Mueller we used to see, and I think that’s affected his ability to be as facile with answering the questions, as perhaps both sides wanted him to be."

— Gary Grumbach (@GaryGrumbach) July 24, 2019

As did NBC’s Glenn Kirschner:

Bob Mueller is struggling. It strikes me as a health issue. We need only look at footage of his earlier congressional appearances to see the dramatic difference in his demeanor and communicative abilities.

— Glenn Kirschner (@glennkirschner2) July 24, 2019