President Joe Biden made a quip about his age on Monday after a report from a special counsel questioned his memory and as a new poll show a majority of Americans think he is too old to run for a second term in office.
‘I know it doesn’t look like it but I’ve been around a while,’ the president said during a speech to the National Association of Counties.
‘I do remember that,’ Biden, 81, added. The crowd of local officials laughed and cheered.
Biden’s tone was notably different than the combative one he took last week after Special Counsel Robert Hur issued his report, which contained the politically embarrassing observation of Biden as a ‘well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.’
The president was in a jokey mood on Monday but, when the report dropped on Thursday, he delivered hastily scheduled remarks to slam Hur for casting doubt on his memory, including the death of his son Beau.
President Joe Biden joked about his age during remarks to the National Association of Counties Legislative Conference
In the report’s aftermath, a vast majority of American voters – 86 percent – say Biden is too old for another term in office, a new poll found.
And 62 percent of respondents in the ABC News/Ipsos poll say that former President Donald Trump, 77, is also too old for another White House term.
Fifty-nine percent of respondents say that both top 2024 competitors are too old while 27 percent think only the current president is elderly enough to be taken out of consideration.
Biden is the oldest president in U.S. history. He broke Trump’s record by eight years when entering office at the age of 78 in January 2021.
If elected for a second term, Biden would be 82 at the time of inauguration.
The latest negative polling for Biden’s reelection bid comes following Thursday’s release of the long-awaited Justice Department report, which did not recommend charges against the former president for his handling of classified documents.
More than 8.5 in 10 American voters think President Joe Biden is too old for another term – and only 62% feel the same about Trump
Hur’s 345-page report said investigators found President Biden’s ‘memory was significantly limited’ during interviews with his ghostwriter and an interview with Hur’s office last year.
According to the report, Biden – during the 2023 interview – did not remember when his son Beau died nor the years he was vice president.
‘In his interview with our office, Mr. Biden’s memory was worse. He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended (‘if it was 2013 – when did I stop being Vice President?’), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began (‘in 2009, am I still Vice President?’),’ according to the report.
‘He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died.’
Beau Biden, an Iraq War veteran who served as the attorney general of Delaware, died in 2015 after battling brain cancer.
Biden, last week, was visibly angry when he refuted that.
‘How in the hell dare he raise that,’ the president said Thursday night from the Diplomatic Reception Room in the White House. ‘Frankly, when I was asked that question, I thought to myself, ‘Wasn’t any of their damn business.’
‘I don’t need anyone to remind me when he passed away,’ Biden added.
‘Every Memorial Day we hold a service (to) remember him attended by friends and family and the people who loved him,’ Biden said, after a pause. ‘I don’t need anyone – I don’t need anyone to remind me when he passed away.’
Joe Biden is sworn in as vice president in January 2013 as wife Jill Biden and son Beau Biden watch him take the oath of office
Trump and his allies promptly seized on the report and its findings to question Biden’s fitness to serve in office.
‘If Joe Biden is not fit to charge, they are not going to judge him with a crime, but it’s OK for him to become commander in chief?’ Trump said at a rally in South Carolina over the weekend.
‘Biden is bad for democracy because he’s grossly incompetent. … Plus, he uses DOJ and FBI and everything he can to go after an opponent and nothing has ever happened like that in this country.’
