Throughout Biden’s presidency, there have been serious concerns about his mental and physical amid a plethora of gaffes and public slip-ups that purportedly demonstrate his advanced age. At 81, Biden is the oldest U.S. president in history.
As concerns from voters continue to mount ahead of the election, the Wall Street Journal recently published an article that polled both Republicans and Democrats on Biden’s cognitive performance. The piece titled “Behind Closed Doors, Biden Shows Signs of Slipping” featured a defense of Biden from the left, who claimed he was fit to serve. However, Republicans maintained that Biden was not the politician he used to be at his younger age.
Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who has extensive experience interacting with Biden over the years, claimed he is “not the same person” he once was. “I used to meet with him when he was vice president. I’d go to his house,” Kevin McCarthy said. “He’s not the same person.”
Sen. James E. Risch asserted, “What you see on TV is what you get. These people who keep talking about what a dynamo he is behind closed doors—they need to get him out from behind closed doors, because I didn’t see it.”
However, the Biden administration hit back at the claims from Republicans that President Biden lacks the mental faculties to fulfill his duties as president. White House spokesman Andrew Bates stated that Biden is a “savvy and effective leader” with a record demonstrating his abilities.
“Congressional Republicans, foreign leaders and nonpartisan national-security experts have made clear in their own words that President Biden is a savvy and effective leader who has a deep record of legislative accomplishment,” according to White House spokesman Andrew Bates. “Now, in 2024, House Republicans are making false claims as a political tactic that flatly contradict previous statements made by themselves and their colleagues.”
Furthermore, the WSJ report features the opinions of Democratic congressional leaders who vouched for the president. Reportedly, the White House kept a pulse on the interviews given by the Democratic leaders, some of whom noted that Biden’s age is showing.
Allegedly, the Biden administration told some of the liberal lawmakers to follow up and emphasize Biden’s strengths. New York Democratic Rep. Gregory Meeks told the Journal, “They just, you know, said that I should give you a call back,” referring to the White House.
An ABC News/Ipsos poll earlier this year found that 86 percent of Americans thought Biden was too old to serve a second term. If re-elected, Biden would be 82 on his inauguration day and 86 by the time he leaves office in January 2029.
Adding to the Biden campaign’s struggle with the public perception of the president’s age, Special Counsel Robert Hur, who was charged with investigating the 81-year-old’s mishandling of classified documents, expressed concerns about his age and memory.
Hur concluded, “We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory . . . It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him—by then a former president well into his eighties of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.”
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