On Saturday, the man who wanted to become the oldest man ever to be elected president of the United States nearly met his maker. Fortunately, the would-be assassin’s bullet only hit 78-year-old Donald J Trump’s ear.
And the intended victim could be heard giving a clear command to the group of Secret Service agents urging him on: “We have to hurry, we have to hurry.” “Wait,” Trump said.
He was determined to seize the moment. He stood up and began punching the air vigorously, creating an image — bloodied but unscathed, with the Stars and Stripes in the background — that could in itself guarantee his re-election as president in November.
That means that Trump, during his second term in the White House, would be older than Biden is now (81). Yet no one worries that he will be “too old.” Rather, the fear of Trump’s opponents is that he will be too dominant and act with demonic energy.
The “age” question has overshadowed the presidential race since Biden’s performance in the first debate between the two candidates. The current occupant of the White House shocked viewers with his confusion, passages of complete nonsense and an occasional glassy, slack jaw that suggested senility.
Determined to seize the moment, Trump began punching the air vigorously, creating an image that alone could guarantee he will be elected president in November, writes DOMINIC LAWSON
For Biden, it is absolutely not just about age, even though that is the word everyone uses. It is about weakness and acute mental degeneration.
On the other hand, Donald Trump said countless things that were completely untrue, but he lied with undiminished vigor.
It was too much for Biden’s champion in the Hollywood elite, George Clooney. Last week, he wrote a scathing piece in the New York Times headlined, “I Love Joe Biden. But We Need a New Nominee.”
Clooney described how, at a recent fundraiser he attended, he “wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same guy we all saw at the debate… Is it fair to point these things out? It has to be. This is about age. Nothing more.”
Wrong. This is absolutely not just about age, even though that is the word everyone uses. It is about weakness. It is about acute mental degeneration. There are, or were, plenty of people Biden’s age who are still strong and intellectually focused, including in the political sphere.
To give a personal example, I recently looked up footage of my late father, Nigel Lawson, speaking at an Oxford Union debate in 2013, when he was the same age as Biden is now.
First of all, my father didn’t have a single gray hair (I promise, it was completely natural, unlike Trump’s hairdo). And he delivered a flawless speech in the audience, only occasionally glancing down at his notes.
My father had always been fortunate in his health — I don’t think he spent a day in the hospital until he was in his ninth decade. This is very different from Joe Biden.
In February 1988, the then-Senator from Delaware suffered a near-catastrophic brain aneurysm. He was given last rites and underwent a nine-hour surgery.
Against all odds, he succeeded. But three months later, Biden suffered a second aneurysm (on the other side of his brain), requiring a more extensive operation.
The president has metal clamps on his cerebral arteries and is therefore unable to undergo an MRI scan, as the magnetic field could move the clamps, with potentially fatal consequences.
Although Trump would be older than Biden at the end of his second term, there are concerns that he will not be “too old” but too dominant.
I wrote about this medical history here over two years ago. I made the point, after Vladimir Putin sent his tanks into Kiev, that the fashionable commentary on the Russian president’s supposed mental state or “illness” was absurd, when the real concern should be with Biden’s capabilities.
And I quoted comments from a year earlier — so in 2021 — by Dr. Greg Ganske, a former congressman who had compared Biden’s mental state to the man he had sat next to at a lunch in 1997: “Witty and charming, without a stutter or incomplete thoughts. It pains me to see President Biden deteriorate and concerns me.”
Quoting a neurosurgeon friend, Dr. Ganske noted that Biden suffered two brain injuries and a 1988 surgery: “It takes a toll and it can show up later.” Of Trump, Dr. Ganske noted, “He’s not senile, and his brain is relatively sharp, whether you like it or not.” That still applies to Donald Trump at 78.
This obsession with ‘age’ rather than ability, incidentally, underlies the Labour manifesto pledge to allow members of the House of Lords to retire during the parliamentary term in which they turn 80.
Some of the most valuable members of the House of Lords are in their 80s. The fact that Sir Keir Starmer has just appointed the (very sharp) 81-year-old former Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett as a life peer shows how absurd this policy is.
As events in the US now show, it is sharpness that counts, not age.
Enjoy your honeymoon Sir Keir while it lasts
Reading the press reports that accompanied Sir Keir Starmer on his trip to the NATO party in Washington DC, you would think it was an unmitigated triumph for the new Prime Minister.
And they were also encouraged by President Zelensky’s reaction after his meeting with Starmer: the Ukrainian leader posted on Twitter/X that he had “heard about [Britain’s] permission to use Storm Shadow missiles against military targets on Russian territory.
We had the opportunity to discuss the practical implementation of this decision… I am grateful to the UK.’ In his own remarks, Starmer said the missiles were ‘up to Ukraine to decide how they would be deployed’.
Despite reports that Starmer was increasing our country’s involvement in Ukraine, there appeared to be no change from policy under Rishi Sunak
Under our previous government, Kiev was told that they could only be used on Ukrainian territory (including Crimea), so several experts praised Starmer’s strengthening of our country’s commitment to Ukraine’s struggle.
But then… a sudden U-turn. It turned out that there had been no change from policy under Rishi Sunak: British defence officials were briefed that Zelensky would have to “seek assurances elsewhere” — presumably including Washington — before Ukraine could fire these missiles at Russian territory, even for defensive purposes.
It is not clear what happened here – whether Starmer did not understand the real situation, or whether Zelensky misunderstood the British prime minister’s words. But it was a debacle, in terms of clarity of message, on a critical issue.
If something like this had happened in the final days of Sunak’s government, the media would have been furious about the ‘confusion at the heart of government’. But now: nothing.
This is the political honeymoon period for the new Prime Minister, so there is no need for criticism. That is normal in such circumstances. Sir Keir should enjoy it while it lasts.