Biden’s age question now arises for Trump, now the oldest candidate in US history – National
The American President Joe Biden withdrawn from the race for the 2024 elections Sunday, as pressure mounts over his age and mental health. Now that he has left the race, the former president Donald Trump he might see these same criticisms leveled at him as attention turns to his own cognitive abilities and past blunders.
Trump, 78, is the oldest presidential candidate in U.S. history, a title he is expected to retain once Democrats finally choose their own nominee.
Biden endorsed vice president Kamala Harris She is poised to lead the party in the upcoming election, but her nomination is not yet guaranteed. The decision is expected to be made at the Democratic National Convention, scheduled for August 19-22.
Harris, 59, is so far the only Democrat in the running for the nomination, but Other Democratic leaders may try to give him a hard time.. Bad news for Trump: All of the politicians who might have a chance of challenging Harris are younger than him, by a wide margin. In fact, most are younger than Harris, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom (56), Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (52) and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (51).
If Trump wins the election and takes office on January 20, 2025, he will overtake Biden as the oldest sitting US president in history – albeit by a narrow margin of five months.
Harris’ relative youth could be a huge asset for the Democratic Party. Rather than being defensive about age, Democrats have an opportunity to turn the tables and leverage the same attacks Trump has launched against Biden.
Is Trump too old to serve?
In January, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley made a prophetic statement while campaigning against Trump in the GOP primary.
“Most Americans don’t want a Biden-Trump rematch,” Haley said at the rally. “The first party to remove its 80-year-old candidate will be the party that wins this election.”
THE clip resurfaces is gaining traction online following Biden’s departure.
Biden’s announcement that he was suspending his re-election campaign made no mention of age, but his withdrawal from the race came at a time when Democratic Donors, party elites And American Voters Everyone wondered aloud whether Biden was too old to serve another term.
The email you need for the day
The top news from Canada and around the world.
Receive daily national news
Get the day’s top political, business and current affairs news delivered to your inbox once a day.
Concerns were raised after Biden’s resignation. disastrous performance in debate Trump had a difficult election campaign, during which he stumbled over his words and appeared confused on several occasions. But Trump has also made embarrassing mistakes during his campaign over the years, and he has not escaped questions about his mental health.
A recent Ipsos survey conducted for ABC News and the Washington Post found that 60% of Americans think Trump is too old for a second term.
During his first term, Trump was already questioned about his cognitive abilities. In 2018, Michael Wolff published his book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White Housewhich included quotes from several Trump advisers who have expressed doubts about his fitness. Trump has denied allegations that he is unfit for office and allowed his doctor to reveal that he underwent a cognitive evaluation and received a perfect score of 30 out of 30.
Trump has continued to reference the test to brag about his mental acuity. (It’s important to note that the test is not designed to measure intelligence, but to screen for neurodegenerative disorders like dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.)
Last month, Trump again referenced the assessment and suggested that Biden be forced to take a cognitive test, just to confuse the doctor who administered the test to him in the following sentence.
“He doesn’t even know what the word ‘inflation’ means. I think he should take a cognitive test like I did,” Trump said during his speech in June. “Doctor Ronny Johnson. Does everybody know Ronny Johnson, the congressman from Texas? He was the White House physician and he said I was the healthiest president in history, according to him, so I really liked him right away.”
The person Trump was referring to is actually Rep. Ronny Jackson, who was the White House physician during part of his presidency.
In another recent gaffe, Trump referred to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as “Nikki Haley” repeatedly referring to the January 6 Capitol riot.
Pelosi responded by saying Trump suffered from a “cognitive disorder.”
Over the course of several months in late 2023, Trump appeared Confusing Biden and Former President Barack Obama Seven Timesaccording to Forbes — three times in a speech on September 15, twice in an interview on October 11 with Fox News Radio, once at a rally on October 1 and again in November.
Trump even he forgot his own wife’s nameIn February this year, he appeared to refer to his wife Melania Trump by calling her “Mercedes.”
During Trump’s recent speech At the Republican National Convention — where he accepted the Republican nomination — the former president appeared to ramble and wander in his remarks.
A Bloomberg opinion piece He blasted the speech, calling it “so sleepwalking and self-centered that at times the conference hall resembled a session led by a medium speaking in tongues.”
Even if Democrats were unable to fully exploit these Trump missteps during the Biden campaign, the floodgates may now be wide open to attack Trump’s age.
But it’s not just US presidents who are getting older. The 118th US Congress under Biden is one of the oldest in US history. Business Insider found that nearly one in four members of Congress are between 70 and 80 years old.
Increased attention to the age of politicians has sparked a debate about age limits. Pew Poll According to an October 2023 survey, 79% of Americans support age limits for federal elected officials and 74% support limits for Supreme Court justices.
© 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
