Questions about President Joe Biden’s age and fitness for office are not going away, even as the 81-year-old president juggles multiple high-stakes international and domestic crises simultaneously and criss-crosses the country to make his case to voters for another term in the White House.
Two verbal slip-ups in the last few days are again bringing the concerns about the president’s cognition to the forefront. Biden twice referred to dead European leaders – François Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl – when talking about recent conversations with his global counterparts, making for awkward moments that highlight the foremost concern about the president among his core supporters.
Polling has consistently shown that the issue that most vexes voters who support Biden’s policies and would otherwise be happy to vote for him is his age. A January NBC poll of 1,000 registered voters found that three quarters of all voters, including half of Democrats, had concerns about Biden’s physical or mental health.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.
A person’s numeric age is not the only measure – nor the best measure – of their mental acuity. Biden’s advisers have said that with his age comes the wisdom and legislative experience garnered during more than three decades in the Senate that enable him to govern the country effectively.
The president frequently mentions his age in jokes during public remarks, making reference to his many decades in public life – “I don’t look it, but I’m 180 years old. I’ve been around a long time,” he told donors at a fundraiser last year.
But that wisdom and experience can be overshadowed when Biden misspeaks – often amplified by right-wing media.
Two examples came this…
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