Megyn Kelly says Americans know the president is too old to run for re-election – but Joe Biden is convinced he is the only man who can beat Donald Trump
Megyn Kelly has claimed that Americans don’t want to vote for Joe Biden because they aren’t thrilled about electing “an almost dead body.”
The journalist addressed a Wall Street Journal poll on Tuesday, published Sunday, that placed Biden and Donald Trump neck-and-neck at 46 percent.
Kelly pointed out that 73 percent of all voters told pollsters they believe the 80-year-old Biden is too old to seek a second term. Two-thirds of Democrats said they considered him two years old.
Only 40 percent said Trump, 77, is too old to run again. Kelly said the poll showed voters were not age-bound, they simply felt Biden was too old.
“The voters are not competent, they are not ageistic,” she said. “They look at people on a case-by-case basis and they see a lively man in Trump and they see an almost corpse — forgive me, but it’s true — in Biden.”
Joe Biden and Donald Trump are both pictured Sunday: Biden, 80, in Delaware and Trump, 77, in New York City
Kelly’s guest Eliana Johnson, editor-in-chief of the Washington Free Beacon, said Biden refused to step aside because he thought other Democrats would lose the election.
“I think Biden thinks he’s the only person who can beat Trump in 2024,” Johnson said.
“I don’t think he thinks Kamala Harris can do it. And I don’t think the Democratic party thinks Kamala Harris can do it. And I think that’s why you see Biden’s reluctance to see the podium and open a primary.
“I think the Democrats are really concerned that they don’t have anyone willing to stand on the sidelines, partly because there would be respect for Kamala Harris.”
Megyn Kelly said on her podcast Tuesday that voters didn’t like Joe Biden’s re-election bid because they didn’t want to vote for a ‘corpse’
Kelly accepted that most voters were unenthusiastic about the prospect of a Trump-Biden rematch in 2024.
“But Trump has huge numbers within his own party,” she said.
“Yet Joe Biden has his fingers in his ears and his eyes closed, and he’s pretending there’s no opposition.”
The survey found a 26 percent margin between those who think Biden is too old and those who think Trump is too old to serve another term.
The Survey from the Wall Street Journaltaken from August 24 to 30, showed that only 36 percent of the 1,500 polled voters think Biden is mentally fit for office, while 46 percent think Trump is mentally fit for the job.
Author Franklin Foer, who wrote a biography about Biden’s first two years as president, said on Sunday he wouldn’t be “totally shocked” if the president dropped out of the race before the end of the year.
When NBC Meet the Press host Chuck Todd asked Sunday how he would react if Biden decided not to finalize his 2024 bid, Foer said, “It would come as a surprise to me.
“But it wouldn’t be a total surprise.”
The author, who, according to publisher Penguin Random House, had “unparalleled access” to Biden and his inner circle, noted that “one of the president’s main insecurities” “is that he doesn’t want to be seen as stupid.”
Biden announced his bid for a second term with Vice President Kamala Harris in late April — but questions have been raised over the past year about whether the president is too old or unfit to serve another four years.
Only 40 percent of respondents in the WSJ survey say Biden has a strong track record of performance. But 51 percent say the same about Trump’s first term.
Infrastructure is the only policy area in which US voters approve of Biden’s job performance.
Meanwhile, their disapproval outweighs approval in areas such as the economy, inflation and the cost of living, border security, China and the war in Ukraine.
Age has become a central issue in the 2024 presidential race, with candidate Nikki Haley proposing earlier this year that there should be an age limit on those who can run for the White House. She said 75 would be a good limit.