We don’t have anyone that age.”īiden’s advisers appear to be taking steps to minimize the job’s physical toll while simultaneously ramping up a twofold strategy to parlay an electoral weakness into a strength. “That is really old by European standards. People worry about his physical frailty and running from age 82 to 86” - the age Biden would be at the end of a second term.

“He doesn’t have the stamina levels of an Obama or a younger president. “Physically, he’s quite frail and he falls off his bicycle, or whatever,” said a former Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity to talk more freely. Biden aides aren’t promising that he won’t stumble again. The challenge gets trickier by the day as the oldest president in history embarks on one last race against a Republican Party eager to pounce on every miscue.Īny misstep is bound to be magnified when voters are already prone to believe Biden should consider retirement. People are like, ‘Oh, this is so bad.’”įaced with life’s unbending reality - no one gets any younger - Biden’s advisers have been trying to blunt concerns about his age since his 2020 campaign. “The number of text messages that I got after the president fell … I mean, my phone was blowing up. “The Democratic Party needs to be responsive to what people are saying about Biden and their concerns that they have with his age,” said one congressional Democrat, speaking on condition of anonymity to talk freely about the president’s fitness.

He has confused Iraq with Ukraine and Rolling Fork, Mississippi, with “Rolling Stone.” At a conference last year, he looked out at the audience and called for a congresswoman who had recently died in a car crash. His gait is less steady, his speech not as fluid. Apart from being the most taxing job on the world stage, the presidency is also the most public, and signs of advancing age are tough to miss.Īpparent to anyone paying attention is that the Biden they may remember from the Robert Bork Supreme Court confirmation hearings of 1987, or the vice presidential debate with Sarah Palin in 2008, is a different man today. Biden’s answer to voters who question whether he’s up to the rigors of a second term is simple: “Watch me.” The trouble is, voters are watching, and what they’re seeing is hardening impressions that it’s time for him to step aside, polling shows.

Biden press conference stumbles