Joe Biden is unable to assure voters that he can handle another term as president, his team has “no plan” on how to deal with his senile behavior, and he simply “should not run for re-election,” according to the authors of the New York Times. .
The concerns of the liberal Times editorial staff and opinion writers show how concerned they are that the ailing Biden may not be able to defeat the “bad man” Donald Trump this year.
The back-to-back op-eds criticizing the elderly president, 81, over the weekend come after a Justice Department report blasted his handling of classified documents and painted him as a forgetful old man.
Special counsel Robert Hur’s 388-page report confirmed he would not be charged, but said this was because a jury would likely conclude he had “diminished faculties” and was a “well-meaning, elderly man with poor memory” .
Biden’s lack of enthusiasm during the campaign, coupled with his evasive public appearances and “awkward grandpa” attitude, are major concerns during this “dark time” in his presidential term, the left-wing newspaper said.
“He must do more to demonstrate to the public that he is fully capable of holding office until he is 86,” the Times board said Sunday.
The back-to-back op-eds blasting the elderly president, 81, come after a Justice Department report into his handling of classified documents was released
On February 9, the New York Times Editorial Board published a scathing, honest op-ed entitled, “The challenges of an aging president.’
The newspaper’s team concluded: “This is a dark moment for Mr. Biden’s presidency.
They said Biden’s appearance at his press conference Thursday evening was “intended to assure the public that his memory is good and argue that Mr. Hur went too far” — but that is not what happened.
Instead, the op-ed said, “the president raised more questions about his cognitive acuity and temperament, while providing emotional and snarky answers at a time when people were looking for steady, even, and competent answers to honest questions about his suitability.” ‘
The board wrote: ‘His insurance policies…didn’t work. He must do better — the stakes in this presidential election are too high for Mr. Biden to hope that he can skate through a campaign with the help of teleprompters and aides and somehow create an opponent as clearly unsuitable as Donald Trump can beat.”
They conceded that Trump “has a very real chance of retaking the White House.”
The piece suggested that Biden is being hidden by his advisers because of his senile age – and instead of campaigning with the people and building trust, he is doing the exact opposite.
It said: “The combination of Mr. Biden’s age and his absence from the public stage has eroded public trust. He looks like he’s hiding, or worse, hidden.
“The details in Mr. Hur’s report will only exacerbate concerns that Mr. Trump’s campaign is already exploiting.”
This wasn’t the only op-ed highlighting Biden’s aging published in the New York Times over the weekend.
Maureen Dowd, 72, is a longtime journalist and opinion writer for the Times. She published a column on February 10 with the headline: ‘Mr. President, drop the secrecy about health.”
She wrote for the NYT: “Health stealth is no longer possible, and the sooner President Biden’s team stops being in denial about it, the better off the Democrats will be.”
The liberal columnist argued that Biden has put himself in bubble wrap — and that going on the defensive while Trump goes on the offensive at a time when “the world is on fire” won’t work for Democrats.
Dowd argued that Jill Biden and his advisers have tried to come up with ways to “cover up signs of aging,” but none of their tricks have worked.
By trying not to come across as a ‘clumsy grandpa’, he has actually shown himself to be a full-fledged ‘clumsy grandpa’.
President Joe Biden (L) and former President Donald Trump (R)
Dowd said that even though Biden is running against a “bad man” — Trump — that is not “not enough” and that he must “recognize to himself that his moments of faltering are a great weakness.”
The NYT writer said: ‘Many Americans are quite concerned about the 81-year-old president’s dim attitude. It’s the elephant in the room, except elephants never forget.
“Donald Trump, 77, makes his own verbal mistakes and shows signs of aging, but he exudes more energy.
“When the president stormed out Thursday evening to show his compos mentis and refute the statements of special counsel Robert Hur, he was angry with the media and accused his staff of mishandling classified documents.
“Petulance never looks good. Biden should have taken a breath.
“Looking back at the image of a creepy grandpa, he came across as a creepy grandpa. ‘I mean well and I’m an older man and I know what I’m doing,’ he barked.’
Dowd argued that Biden’s team “clearly has no plan to deal with the president’s age other than protecting him and hiding him, and reporting to reporters that his mental state is a real problem.”
She sternly warned, “Democrats need to grab their stinking salts for a long time off the fumes. It will be a very virulent and violent year.”
The third, damning opinion piece that the New York Times published about Biden this weekend came from 44-year-old political analyst Ross Douthat.
His scathing piece was titled: “The question is not whether Biden should step aside. It’s how.’
Douthat wrote in the Times: “Joe Biden should not be running for re-election.
“The impression the president gives in public is not so much senility as extreme vulnerability, like a light bulb that stays on as long as you leave it on a dimmer.”
He said that if Biden drops out and anoints Vice President Kamala Harris, “she is even more likely to lose to Donald Trump.”
But he says: ‘If he drops out and doesn’t support his own number two, he would be opening himself up to a story of identitarian betrayal – the aging white president vs. the first woman of color – and setting up his party. months of bloodshed and betrayal, a constant stream of personal and ideological drama.’
According to the latest polls, there is a good chance that Biden will become the Democratic candidate dropped to just 60 percent, giving a boost to potential candidates Michelle Obama, Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris.
This comes as a new poll found that Americans are highly skeptical of Biden’s mental ability to serve out a second term as he begins making his case for re-election in earnest.
A total of 76 percent of voters have strong or moderate concerns that 81-year-old Biden has the necessary mental and physical health to become president for a second term, according to a new NBC poll.
As many as 62 percent of voters in the poll say they have “major concerns” about Biden’s mental and physical health.
The poll reflects the mood on the campaign trail, as Biden’s aides increase the number of campaign events but also risk more embarrassing moments for the president.
This week, Biden’s staff struggled to explain why the president repeatedly referred to dead European leaders as if they were still in power.
The poll reflects the mood on the campaign trail, as Biden’s aides increase the number of campaign events but also risk more embarrassing moments for the president.
This week, Biden’s staff struggled to explain why the president repeatedly referred to dead European leaders as if they were still in power.
The survey of 1,000 registered voters was conducted Jan. 26 to 30, prior to Biden’s confusion over speaking to two different world leaders who died before the events he recalled.
On Wednesday, Biden recalled a 2021 conversation with German Chancellor Helmut Kohl at a fundraising event in New York City. Kohl died in 2017.
On Sunday, Biden spoke about a 2021 conversation with François Mitterrand, a French president who died in 1996.