Joe Biden's Age is About More Than a Number

The mainstream press is now asking the tough questions

The Wall Street Journal finally reports what we all know is happening.

WASHINGTON—When President Biden met with congressional leaders in the West Wing in January to negotiate a Ukraine funding deal, he spoke so softly at times that some participants struggled to hear him, according to five people familiar with the meeting. He read from notes to make obvious points, paused for extended periods and sometimes closed his eyes for so long that some in the room wondered whether he had tuned out.

In a February one-on-one chat in the Oval Office with House Speaker Mike Johnson, the president said a recent policy change by his administration that jeopardizes some big energy projects was just a study, according to six people told at the time about what Johnson said had happened. Johnson worried the president’s memory had slipped about the details of his own policy.

Last year, when Biden was negotiating with House Republicans to lift the debt ceiling, his demeanor and command of the details seemed to shift from one day to the next, according to then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and two others familiar with the talks. On some days, he had loose and spontaneous exchanges with Republicans, and on others he mumbled and appeared to rely on notes.

“I used to meet with him when he was vice president. I’d go to his house,” McCarthy said in an interview. “He’s not the same person.”

The 81-year-old Biden is the oldest person to hold the presidency. His age and cognitive fitness have become major issues in his campaign for a second term, both in the minds of voters and in attacks on him by Republicans. The White House and top aides said he remains a sharp and vigorous leader. 

Some who have worked with him, however, including Democrats and some who have known him back to his time as vice president, described a president who appears slower now, someone who has both good moments and bad ones…

The White House’s response? Force the Democrats who gave comment to walk back their concerns:

This article is based on interviews with more than 45 people over several months. The interviews were with Republicans and Democrats who either participated in meetings with Biden or were briefed on them contemporaneously, including administration officials and other Democrats who found no fault in the president’s handling of the meetings. Most of those who said Biden performed poorly were Republicans, but some Democrats said that he showed his age in several of the exchanges. 

The White House kept close tabs on some of The Wall Street Journal’s interviews with Democratic lawmakers. After the offices of several Democrats shared with the White House either a recording of an interview or details about what was asked, some of those lawmakers spoke to the Journal a second time and once again emphasized Biden’s strengths. 

“They just, you know, said that I should give you a call back,” said Rep. Gregory Meeks, a New York Democrat, referring to the White House.

But that’s not going to distract people from this:

Yikes!

On May 20, during a Rose Garden event celebrating Jewish American Heritage month, Biden said one of the U.S. hostages held in Gaza was a guest at the White House event, before correcting himself. One day earlier, at a campaign event in Detroit, he indicated that he was vice president during the Covid-19 pandemic, which started three years after he left that office. It was one of numerous flubs in the single speech that prompted the White House to make corrections to the official transcript.

In January, he mixed up two of his Hispanic cabinet secretaries, Alejandro Mayorkas and Xavier Becerra. During a February fundraiser in New York, he recounted speaking to German Chancellor Helmut Kohl—who died in 2017—at the 2021 Group of Seven meeting. That same month, at a different fundraiser, he said that during the 2021 G-7 summit he had spoken to former French President François Mitterrand, who died in 1996. 

As a chaser, there’s this bit in his TIME interview:

The last two years of Presidents, two-term President's tenure are usually focused on foreign affairs. You are 81 years old, and would be 86 by the time you left office. Large majorities of Americans, including in the Democratic Party, tell pollsters they think you are too old to lead. Could you really do this job as an 85-year old man?

Biden: I can do it better than anybody you know.  You’re looking at me, I can take you too.