Add Senate candidate Joe Biden to the list of people whose comments could be a problem for President Joe Biden as he seeks a second term in the White House.
The 80-year-old Mr Biden is mounting a historic re-election bid that would, if successful, see him once again become the oldest person to ever take a presidential oath of office, beating the record he previously set in 2021.
But as a new investigation from CNN’s KFile unit revealed on Tuesday, the president once attacked a political opponent quite explicitly with the same angle that Mr Biden’s detractors, particularly those in the GOP, both used in 2020 and likely will again in 2024: His age, and mental fortitude.
The comments were made during Mr Biden’s successful 1972 run against then-Senator Cale Boggs; Mr Boggs, just 63 years old at the time, was at the time expected to win his re-election bid easily but narrowly fell to the 29-year-old Mr Biden when the votes came in.
“Cale doesn’t want to run, he’s lost that old twinkle in his eye he used to have,” Mr Biden said during one campaign appearance dug up by CNN.
His ads were similarly focused on the subject of his opponent being out of touch due to advanced age, according to CNN: “In Cale Boggs’ day when Stalin ruled, Americans had visions of the Russian soldiers in our streets. In Joe Biden’s day, Americans have visions of American criminals in our streets. Joe Biden, he understands what’s happening today.”
Critics of Mr Biden loudly suggested that the president was senile and not fit for office during his 2020 run for the presidency. Those calls haven’t gone away, and have been embraced by GOP primary candidate Nikki Haley in a push for cognitive tests for all presidential candidates over a certain age.
Other senior politicians like California Senator Dianne Feinstein have faced similar criticisms in recent weeks; Ms Feinstein presently faces calls to step down from the Senate Judiciary Committee until she can return to office amid an absence due to medical reasons.
Mr Biden has dismissed those attacks, telling doubters to watch his upcoming performance on the campaign trail; that on-the-ground campaigning style Mr Biden has jumped back into as president was largely stifled in during 2020 as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, which at the time was still in its early pre-vaccine stages.
A White House spokesperson did not address the apparent inconsistency in the president’s newfound respect for senior elected officials, but offered a reason for Mr Biden’s eageness to seek a second term.
Andrew Bates, the spokesperson, praised the “historic progress” he said the Biden administration had achieved in one term, which Mr Bates said included “his unprecedented investments in fighting climate change, his first-of-its kind police reform executive order, his actions to support community policing and decriminalize marijuana, and getting more Americans health coverage than ever before.”
