Former Barack Obama aides are sounding the alarm on President Joe Biden's advanced age, calling it "a very real issue" given how "frail" and "mumbly" the commander in chief seems compared to when they last worked with him during his vice presidency.
"If you watch Joe Biden speak, oftentimes he sounds frail and he sounds more frail than he used to, even in 2019 and 2020," Jon Favreau, the main speechwriter for former President Obama, said during a recent episode of the "Pod Save America" podcast.
"The voice sounds frail, and he shuffles more because of the arthritis in his back," Favreau said, adding that the 81-year-old president also appears "mumbly."
He also mentioned polls showing some 80% of Americans have concerns about Biden's age and said the White House needs to address the issue directly because his clear decline is occurring in front of voters' eyes.
Despite his lengthening string of stumbles and verbal gaffes, Biden needs to appear on camera more — not less — if he has any shot at reassuring voters that he's up for another term, Favreau said.
"When world events seem like they are overtaking him and he's not out there enough forcefully, that's what's getting people concerned," he said.
In a separate interview, former Obama senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer voiced his own concerns about Biden's age.
"It is a very real issue," he told Courier. "If Biden can't assuage, particularly among his voters from 2020, then I don't think he can win the election — so, in some ways, it's the crux for his campaign."
The "first strategic priority" for the president's reelection campaign should be allaying fears about his age, Pfeiffer said.
"There's a segment of voters who have decided — as of right now, I think their minds can be changed — who have decided that Joe Biden is too old for the job and can't do it, so they're not going to listen to anything he says," he said.
David Axelrod, Obama's former campaign strategist, also weighed in, telling CNN he "would encourage Biden to be Biden" and pointed to an instance in 1979, when the then-senator told a Soviet Union counterpart that "you can't s*** a s******."
He cited reports of anonymous White House sources discussing Biden's angry behind-the-scenes behavior and said the president should leverage his temper by confronting former President Donald Trump, his likely GOP rival, with "short phrases of Biden-esque" that could go viral online.
Nicole Weatherholtz ✉
Nicole Weatherholtz, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.
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