Former Biden campaign surrogate described President Joe Biden as a “spry 79-year-old” Friday while debating whether he should run for a second term.
“America Reports” host John Roberts cited the president’s medical records determining he is in “declining health.” Over half of Democratic voters prefer a different candidate in 2024 other than Biden, in part, due to his age, a recent New York Times/Siena poll found.
“I’m hopeful that the president’s condition, as we saw in the latest report from his doctor, he is improving, he is a spry 79-year-old,” Kevin Walling said. “I was just with him two weeks ago on the South Lawn for the 4th of July celebration, he worked the rope line for three hours in the heat and obviously he just came back from the Middle East in that trip where he kept a really tight schedule. I think the American people will be the judge of the president’s stamina in the next 800 days out from the 2024 election.”
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He added he “would love” for the president to run for re-election. (RELATED: ‘They Want Me To Run’: Biden Misrepresents NYT Poll Showing Most Democrats Don’t Want Him To Run)
Former Clinton-era Secretary of Labor Robert Reich argued Biden is “too old to run again” in a Sunday op-ed for The Guardian. The “dwindling capacities” of old age are a concern if the president, who will be 86 at the end of his second term, decides to run for re-election, Reich wrote.
The top reasons Democrats want a different candidate is due to the president’s age and job performance, the New York Times/Siena poll found.
Former Trump 2020 communications director Erin Perrine said Democratic voters are beginning to say “the quiet part out loud” about Biden’s gaffes, which the White House communications team has repeatedly walked back. She then said the Republican side has many candidates that could easily defeat Biden due to his “abysmal approval ratings.”
In his most recent gaffe, Biden mistakenly said he had cancer from oil slicks, though he likely referred to previously being diagnosed with having melanoma cancers removed. Roberts suggested his remarks could be a symptom of “mental decline.”
“The American people will be the judge of that,” Walling said. “This president is known for many things, and he’s known for gaffes going back to when he was in the Senate for 40 years from Delaware. So that’s nothing new with this president. Obviously you have a press shop similar to the Trump years where you have to clean up things that the president has said. That is a constant in the White House communications.”