Biden Flips The Script On Age Concerns By Highlighting Trump’s Gaffes
KEY FACTS
Biden played along with NBC’s Seth Meyers when the “Late Night” host quipped that he had “classified information” revealing the president’s age (81), to which Biden responded: “Who the hell told you that? That’s classified!”
The president then took a jab at Trump, 77, for appearing to refer to his wife, Melania Trump, as “Mercedes” during a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference over the weekend (though Trump’s campaign said he was referring to Mercedes Schlapp, a political commentator and wife of American Conservative Union chair and former White House staffer Matt Schlapp).
“He’s about as old as I am, but he can’t remember his wife’s name,” Biden told Meyers.
Biden’s campaign has also hit Trump for verbal missteps on social media in recent months, including Tuesday, when the Biden-Harris HQ account published a clip of Trump making a confusing statement about waterfalls, faucets and washing machines in an interview with the right-wing outlet Real America’s Voice.
In another post on X, formerly known as Twitter, the campaign highlighted a line from Trump’s CPAC speech when he said “nobody can ramble like I do,” accusing Trump of being “confused.”
The Biden-Harris campaign also accused Trump of “repeatedly slurring and stumbling his words” and “confusing who is currently president” in a post on X on Saturday, referring to several incidents over the past few months when Trump has said “Obama” when he appears to be referencing Biden.
CONTRA
Trump has claimed many of his gaffes were on purpose or misinterpreted. In November, Trump said he “sarcastically” interchanges Obama and Biden in an effort to highlight the conspiracy theory that former President Barack Obama, not Biden, is secretly running the White House. Trump also regularly touts what he claims are “exceptional” cognitive exams and publicly releases medical reports by his doctors to prove he is in good health.
BIG NUMBER
62%. That’s the share of registered voters who said in a January NBC poll they have major concerns about Biden not having the necessary mental and physical health to be president for a second term, compared to 34% who said the same about Trump.
KEY BACKGROUND
Biden’s penchant for rhetorical blunders and repeated incidents when he has appeared to lose his balance have fueled concerns that he is too old to run for another term. Those concerns were exacerbated by a report from Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Hur that cleared him of wrongdoing in its probe of his handling of classified documents, citing concerns that a jury would sympathize with Biden as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” Hur cited several instances when Biden allegedly couldn’t remember dates, such as when his son Beau died or when he was vice president. Biden has hit back at the claims, equating his age with experience and telling reporters during a tense news conference in response to the Hur report “I know what the hell I am doing.” Trump, in an apparent show of awareness that he is just four years younger than the president, has largely shied away from pointed attacks against Biden’s age, instead letting his surrogates take the lead, while claiming Biden is “not too old” to be president, but that he’s “incompetent,” he said in September on SiriusXM’s “The Megyn Kelly Show.”
TANGENT
Biden has used his own age as a punch line in public appearances in recent months. During a speech at the National Association of Counties Legislative Conference earlier this month, Biden said “I know I don’t look like it, but I’ve been around a while, I do remember that,” referring to clean energy initiatives by his administration. And when he celebrated his 81st birthday in December, Biden told a crowd at the White House annual turkey pardoning “it’s difficult turning 60.”
Comments
Post a Comment