Biden says his age would not register with him when requested about 2024 run : NPR

President Biden responded to questions on his age throughout a press convention on the White Home Rose Backyard on Wednesday. The president can be 86 by the tip of a second time period.

Drew Angerer/Getty Photographs

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Drew Angerer/Getty Photographs

President Biden responded to questions on his age throughout a press convention on the White Home Rose Backyard on Wednesday. The president can be 86 by the tip of a second time period.

Drew Angerer/Getty Photographs

President Biden mentioned that his personal age would not register with him, regardless of current polling that reveals People have concern over the president’s age as he runs for a second time period.

At a press convention with the South Korean president on Wednesday, Biden fielded questions from reporters about considerations from voters.

“With regard to age, I am unable to even say I suppose how previous I’m, I am unable to even say the quantity. It would not register with me,” Biden mentioned on his age, including that persons are going to observe the marketing campaign and choose for themselves.

“I respect them taking a tough take a look at it — I would take a tough take a look at it, as nicely. I took a tough take a look at it earlier than I made a decision to run, and I really feel good. I really feel excited concerning the prospects,” he mentioned.

An NBC ballot launched this weekend discovered that 70% of People don’t desire Biden to run for reelection, with half of these citing age as a significant component.

Biden was 29 when he was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972, changing into the fifth youngest particular person to take action. Many years later, at age 78, he turned the oldest dwelling president the day he was sworn into workplace. If elected to a second time period, he can be 86 by the tip of it.

The president mentioned the identical polling knowledge that reveals concern for his age additionally reveals help for what he is performed in workplace.

“When the identical polling knowledge asks what sort of job I’ve performed, it will get overwhelmingly constructive outcomes,” Biden mentioned at a press convention Wednesday.

The info from the NBC ballot reveals 41% of adults polled approve of Biden’s job efficiency and 54% disapprove, which is down from January. Biden appeared to separate that from approval of specific legislative accomplishments, together with creating manufacturing jobs and local weather investments.

Biden works out 5 days per week and obtained a clear invoice of well being at his annual bodily earlier this yr, together with his doctor concluding that he “stays match for obligation, and totally executes all of his tasks with none exemptions or lodging.”

That does not imply that his age will not be a difficulty on the marketing campaign path.

The truth is, his age as an element is “indeniable,” says David Axelrod, chief strategist for President Obama’s campaigns and senior political commentator for CNN.

“If you take a look at polling, while you watch focus teams, it is the factor that folks convey up first,” he says. “We’re in uncharted waters, we have by no means had a president this previous.”

Nonetheless, Axelrod says, there are “upsides” to Biden’s age: knowledge, expertise and perspective.

“And at a time when there’s a lot churn and turmoil, these three qualities are property for him,” he instructed Morning Version‘s Steve Inskeep.

Cristina Tzinzún Ramirez, president of the progressive nonprofit NextGen America, says what’s most vital to younger voters is progressive coverage change — not age.

“Younger voters in the previous few elections have turned out in historic numbers. Younger individuals overwhelmingly in 2020, throughout the Democratic main, supported the oldest candidate within the race, Bernie Sanders. After which they turned out in overwhelming numbers to vote for Joe Biden.”

Ramirez says she thinks younger individuals will prove once more, as a result of Joe Biden has delivered on particular points they care about: gun reform, local weather change laws, marijuana reform and pupil debt cancellation. “Finally, that is what persons are going to measure him by,” she mentioned.

Biden’s protection: “Watch me”

Questions on Biden’s age are nothing new. His opponents used it towards him when he ran in 2020, and have continued pointing to his on-camera stumbles to insinuate he’s affected by cognitive points (a line of assault that usually backfires, as NPR has reported).

When requested about Biden’s age in a current White Home press briefing, White Home Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre mentioned “It is the identical factor that we heard in 2020. Proper? When you take a look at what the President has performed this previous two years, he is been in a position to ship and get issues performed.”

Axelrod argues that Biden’s method — significantly with regards to issues like being much less reactive on social media — is a part of why voters elected him within the first place, and that these qualities have been what individuals needed after the tenure of former President Donald Trump.

Biden’s method is principally “watch me,” Axelrod factors out, utilizing the phrase the president himself has used.

Axelrod describes being president as “the toughest job on the planet,” due to the limitless hours and weighty choices. He says Biden’s employees would level to a few of his excessive factors as proof he can do it, reminiscent of his February State of the Union deal with, wherein he made a pitch to “end the job.”

“He stood on his toes for an hour, he engaged his hecklers and he was triumphant,” Axelrod says. “And that is what they are going to say is ‘simply watch him.'”

However that will not essentially be sufficient, says Axelrod, advising Biden to handle his age brazenly, each the “apparent dangers” and the benefits.

“He usually says ‘do not choose me versus the almighty, choose me versus the choice,'” he provides. “And I believe that is what they’re relying on now, his strategists — that this is not going to be a referendum on Joe Biden, that is going to be a selection. And the selection very nicely would be the similar selection we confronted 4 years in the past.”

Trump is not a younger man both

Trump, the present frontrunner within the Republican main subject, is barely 4 years youthful than Biden. He can be 77 in June.

A rematch between the 2 is wanting seemingly, with a current NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist ballot discovering that two-thirds of Republicans would nonetheless vote for Trump even when he’s discovered responsible of against the law.

His age might be a priority for voters too, Axelrod says, noting that former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley is making “generational change a elementary side of her marketing campaign.”

In her kickoff speech, Haley known as for “obligatory psychological competency checks” for candidates over the age of 75.

Axelrod believes others will make the same argument about Trump’s age, “as a result of you’ll be able to’t actually exploit this vulnerability as nicely in Biden in case you run a candidate who’s principally the identical age.”

And if both get together finally ends up with a youthful candidate, can they make the argument that it is time to transfer on from the politics of the previous?

“They will make that argument and I believe it would land with some voters,” Axelrod says. “They usually’ll select between that and people qualities I discussed earlier than: knowledge, expertise and perspective.”

Kaity Kline contributed manufacturing and reporting, and John Helton and Miranda Kennedy edited.