Biden defends his age: ‘A hell of a lot of wisdom and experience’

This content was published on May 06, 2023 – 05:31
May 06, 2023 – 05:31

(SDA Keystone)

US President Joe Biden has dismissed suspicions that his age would make him unfit for another term. “I gained a lot of wisdom.

“I know more than the vast majority of people,” the 80-year-old said in an interview with MSNBC television Friday night (local time).

Biden moved into the White House in 2021 as the oldest president ever. At the end of April, the Democrat announced that he wanted to run for a second term in the presidential elections next year. Biden will be 81 when he is elected in a year and a half, and he will be 86 at the end of a possible second term.

The grandfather of seven has been in politics for decades. He has sat in the Senate for over 35 years. From 2009 to 2017 he was Vice President of the then United States Barack Obama, four years earlier he himself rose to the highest office in the United States.

Biden’s age and suitability to run for president again has long been a topic of debate, including within his own party. The Democrat regularly attracts derision with slips of the tongue. Biden was treated in bad faith on Friday only because he announced a “big press conference” during an afternoon White House appearance that caused confusion. Nothing was known about the press conference by the president, nor did it happen. The US media, citing the White House, reported that Biden referred to the recording of the MSNBC interview when he made his announcement – and thus expressed it almost incorrectly. The political rivalry regularly uses small steps of this nature to question Biden’s mental fitness.

Former President Donald Trump is once again running as the nominee of the Republicans, whom Biden has already campaigned against in 2020. Biden defeated the Republican incumbent at the time. “We cannot allow the same man who was president four years ago to become president again in this election,” Biden said, without naming Trump. When asked what distinguishes him from Trump, he replied: “Everything. Everything. Everything.”

A wide field of Republican applicants is expected. In the case of the Democrats, on the other hand, Biden, as the incumbent, is unlikely to have any serious competition. In order to actually run as his party’s official nominee, Biden must be confirmed in the party’s internal primary.

Biden has already committed to returning to the race with his vice president, US Vice President Kamala Harris. However, Harris has remained sallow in the past two years, he has had to struggle with image problems and he hasn’t been able to score political goals. On the campaign trail, the Biden team should also be concerned with polishing their external influence. The first Biden campaign video, in which the Democrat publicized his re-election ambitions, already offered a preconceived notion of it: Harris was given plenty of space in it. When asked about this, Biden said in an interview with MSNBC: “I just think Vice President Harris didn’t get the credit she deserved.” It was “really very, very good” and didn’t get the attention it deserved.