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 House Rose Garden on Wednesday. The president can be 86 by the tip of a second time period.

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Drew Angerer/Getty Images

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

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

President Biden mentioned that his personal age would not register with him, regardless of latest polling that exhibits Americans 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 issues 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 individuals are going to look at the marketing campaign and choose for themselves.

“I respect them taking a tough have a look at it — I’d take a tough have a look at it, as nicely. I took a tough have 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 Americans don’t need 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, turning into the fifth youngest individual to take action. Decades 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 exhibits concern for his age additionally exhibits assist for what he is accomplished in workplace.

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

The knowledge from the NBC ballot exhibits 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 every week and obtained a clear invoice of well being at his annual bodily earlier this 12 months, along with his doctor concluding that he “stays match for obligation, and totally executes all of his obligations with none exemptions or lodging.”

That doesn’t suggest that his age will not be a difficulty on the marketing campaign path.

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

“When you have a look at polling, if you watch focus teams, it is the factor that folks deliver up first,” he says. “We are in uncharted waters, we have by no means had a president this previous.”

Still, 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 belongings for him,” he advised Morning Edition‘s Steve Inskeep.

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

“Young voters in the previous couple of elections have turned out in historic numbers. Young folks overwhelmingly in 2020, throughout the Democratic major, supported the oldest candidate within the race, Bernie Sanders. And then they turned out in overwhelming numbers to vote for Joe Biden.”

Ramirez says she thinks younger folks 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. “Ultimately, that is what individuals are going to measure him by,” she mentioned.

Biden’s protection: “Watch me”

Questions about Biden’s age are nothing new. His opponents used it in opposition to 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 latest White House press briefing, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre mentioned “It’s the identical factor that we heard in 2020. Right? If you have a look at what the President has accomplished this previous two years, he is been capable of ship and get issues accomplished.”

Axelrod argues that Biden’s method — notably in terms of 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 had been what folks needed after the tenure of former President Donald Trump.

Biden’s method is mainly “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 infinite hours and weighty selections. He says Biden’s employees would level to a few of his excessive factors as proof he can do it, corresponding to his February State of the Union deal with, wherein he made a pitch to “end the job.”

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

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

“He typically says ‘do not choose me versus the almighty, choose me versus the choice,'” he provides. “And I feel 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 alternative. And the selection very nicely could be the identical alternative we confronted 4 years in the past.”

Trump is not a younger man both

Trump, the present frontrunner within the Republican major subject, is simply 4 years youthful than Biden. He will probably be 77 in June.

A rematch between the 2 is trying probably, with a latest 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 basic side of her marketing campaign.”

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

Axelrod believes others will make an analogous argument about Trump’s age, “as a result of you possibly can’t actually exploit this vulnerability as nicely in Biden in case you run a candidate who’s mainly the identical age.”

And if both occasion 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 could make that argument and I feel it’ll land with some voters,” Axelrod says. “And they will 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.