Note Cards, Early Nights, Less Stairs, Vacations: How Biden’s Age Impacts His Campaign

Octogenarian President Joe Biden is getting ready to hit the road for his run at the 2024 election and already his aides are making sure his efforts are in keeping with an 80-year-old who critics say is just too old for the highest office in the land.

Three NBC news reporters – Carol E. Lee, Peter Nicholas and Monica Alba – had a piece published Monday detailing a host of modifications to Biden’s day-to-day scheduling designed to limit the possibility of him failing to deliver in public. They noted:

Joe Biden’s aides realized they had a problem last month when the president tripped over a sandbag — hard — at the Air Force Academy’s graduation ceremony. Afterward, a few huddled to figure out what may have gone wrong and how to make sure that such an embarrassing and dangerous incident “never happens again,” according to two people familiar with the discussion.

“You can’t be too careful,” one said.

The piece does note Biden has previously addressed concerns his age is a factor against him, simply offering “Watch me” by way of confident response.

The public evidence of his age works against such confidence, with the piece going on to state, “His gait is less steady, his speech not as fluid. He has confused Iraq with Ukraine and Rolling Fork, Mississippi, with “Rolling Stone.”

At other times he simply has problems identifying fellow public figures.

FLASHBACK: OOPS! Biden Stumbles, Calls Volodymyr Zelensky “Vladimir” at G7 Meeting

“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, as quoted by the NBC article.

“The number of text messages that I got after the president fell … I mean, my phone was blowing up. People are like, ‘Oh, this is so bad.’”

Alarm bells rang for many when Biden was seen falling UP the stairs to Air Force One, as Breitbart News reported back in 2021.

FLASHBACK: Ouch! Biden Stumbles Multiple Times Boarding Air Force One

The NBC piece goes on to quote one observer who sees a man struggling to match his ambitions with the onset of physical frailty that would impact anyone in the same age cohort:

“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. “He doesn’t have the stamina levels of an Obama or a younger president. 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. “That is really old by European standards. Really, really old. We don’t have anyone that age.”

Earlier this month Biden shunned fellow world leaders and skipped a NATO leadership dinner, with the White House citing the president’s workload for retiring early to his hotel in Vilnius, Lithuania, as Breitbart News reported.

Biden, who had only been in Europe for 48-hours and spent at day on the beach relaxing before departure, had Secretary of State Antony Blinken attend in his place.

It was the third time the 80-year-old has skipped a dinner with world leaders while on an international trip, Fox News reported.

Biden would be 86 by the end of a second term and opponents are happy to public challenge his workload and ability to fully discharge his duties.

As Breitbart News reported, according to statistics complied by RNC Research, the president has reportedly spent 353 days — 39.2 percent of his presidency — disappearing on vacation.

His favorite place of respite is on the sand near his holiday home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

U.S. President Joe Biden holds up a note card as he meets with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, July 26, 2021. (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

U.S. President Joe Biden looks at a note card referencing a reporter as he delivers remarks during a joint press conference with South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol in the Rose Garden at the White House, April 26, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

The most recent statistics on Biden’s absence from the White House follow other revelations about his work-shy manner.

In August 2022 Biden was recorded as having spent a record 150 days at home in Delaware in the 18 months since he was elected president, as Breitbart News reported.

The year before that he was reportedly ensconced at Camp David as the world watched Kabul, Afghanistan fall to the Taliban and mass evacuations began.

It’s not as if the questions of Biden’s age are anything new.

In January, at least two establishment media outlets Biden’s 2024 viability due to his advanced age and continuous blunders.

The issues were raised on the same day the president will undergo a physical examination, as Breitbart News reported.

File/U.S. President Joe Biden falls off his bicycle as he approaches well-wishers following a bike ride at Gordon’s Pond State Park in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, on June 18, 2022.(SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty)

File/President Joe Biden is helped up after falling during the graduation ceremony at the United States Air Force Academy, just north of Colorado Springs in El Paso County, Colorado, on June 1, 2023. (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

Even then the outlets appeared to be taking the position Biden’s age and mental acuity could impact his chances of defeating the GOP nominee. One outlet phrased the White House’s attempt to play down the dilemma as a balancing act.

“That is leading to a focus on events that try to play up the president’s vitality, while trying to strike a balance in the schedule of a man who tends to make more blunders when tired,” CNN’s Edward-Isaac Dovere and Phil Mattingly wrote.

Between now and next year’s polling, the president can expect more of such speculation – not less.

Biden, who is the oldest president in U.S. history at age 80, would remain so if he won reelection in 2024. If he runs for reelection and wins, he will be 86 by the end of his second term.

Read the NBC News piece in full here

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