Florida Governor Ron DeSantis played his obvious “Trump” card against his main rival on Monday by suggesting that his main Republican rival is too old to become president.
DeSantis, 44, said voters’ concerns about Donald Trump, 77, and Joe Biden, 80, being too old to serve a second term are “absolutely a legitimate concern.”
The governor of Florida continues to trail Trump badly in the Republican primaries for the right to replace Biden, the country’s oldest president ever, at the age of 80, in 2024.
“The presidency is not a job for someone who is 80 years old,” DeSantis said Tuesday. ‘And there’s nothing wrong with being 80. Obviously, I’m the governor of Florida. I know many people who are elderly. They’re great people.’
‘But you’re talking about a job where you have to give 100 percent. We need an energetic president.”
He believes he could use his age against Biden if he were to become the Republican nominee and become the third-youngest president ever — after Teddy Roosevelt and JFK — if he won the nomination and the 2024 election.
Florida governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis said Tuesday he supports age limits for lawmakers in Congress and said the ages of both Donald Trump and Joe Biden are “absolutely a legitimate concern.”
“I think Americans — if Biden is the Democratic nominee, I’m the Republican nominee — I think there are going to be a lot of Americans who want to see the torch passed through a generation,” he said.
He told it too CBS News he thinks the country’s Founding Fathers “would probably have placed an age limit on some of these offices” if they had made a second attempt at writing the Constitution.
CBS News cited its own poll released Sunday that said more than 53 percent of Americans believe the presidency is too demanding for someone over 75, with 78 percent concerned about their ability to do the job.
DeSantis also told Norah O’Donnell he would send U.S. troops to the shared border with Mexico and said he wanted to avoid war with China.
Trump was the nation’s oldest president when he first took office at age 70, with only Biden surpassing him in 2022 at age 78.
Although the Florida Republican — who was on his way to re-election last year — has seen positive polling numbers in a head-to-head battle against Biden, he still has a lot of work to do to defeat his predecessor.
Trump remains miles ahead of his Republican counterparts, a new national poll shows — despite four arrests, a historic mugshot and not attending this week’s GOP debate, where many of his rivals had strong showings.
Organized by Insider advantageThe survey of likely Republican voters showed that despite his controversies, the former president has a 27 percent lead over his closest runner-up in DeSantis, and 34 percent over South Carolina’s Nikki Haley.
Next up was the man many thought won the noticeably Trump-less debate, biotech billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, who recently defeated DeSantis as the perceived winner in a poll organized by DailyMail.com. Here he scored only fourth place, with 7 percent.
Trump (pictured right) was the nation’s oldest president when he first took office at age 70, with only Biden (pictured left) surpassing him in 2022 at age 78.
DeSantis (pictured with wife Casey) believes he could use his age against Biden if he becomes the Republican nominee
The survey of likely Republican voters, conducted by InsiderAdvantage, found that despite his controversies, the former president has a double-digit lead over the rest of the Republican Party.
A new CNN poll shows Biden trailing Trump, Pence, Scott, Ramaswamy, Christie and Haley and tied with DeSantis
It was held after the debate and also indicated a trend of increasing support for the runner-up in both polls in DeSantis, as well as for fellow debate top man Haley. That said, both remain far behind the controversial ex-head of state.
However, recent polls show DeSantis in a 47-47 tie with the current president.
Biden narrowly trails Trump, the Republican Party frontrunner, 47 to 46 in a new CNN/SSRS poll. That matches polling averages such as those from RealClearPolitics, with Biden leading Trump by 1 percentage point.
Voters in those polls continued to express deep concerns about Biden and his age in particular.
It shows that 73 percent are seriously concerned about his mental competency and 76 percent are concerned about his ability to serve his four-year term if re-elected.
Two-thirds of Democrats, or 67 percent, say the party should nominate someone other than Biden, up from 54 percent in March.
Both Biden and Trump are at 35 percent favorability.
The poll comes as Biden prepares to fly to India for a meeting of world leaders at the G20 summit.