Newsweek

Biden’s Age Problem Tears Democrats Apart

JUST OVER A MONTH AFTER A SPECIAL COUNSEL report brought questions over Joe Biden’s age to the forefront of the 2024 presidential campaign, Democrats are torn about the best way of addressing what is becoming one of the election’s defining issues.

The president, 81, and his advisers struck back after Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report on February 8 depicted him as an “elderly man with a poor memory.”

Biden staged a rare evening press conference within hours. In the days that followed, Vice President Kamala Harris called the report “politically motivated,” and First Lady Jill Biden joined a chorus of surrogates vouching for Biden’s fitness and energy.

But as the president and his team have tried to move on from the damage caused by the report, White House allies and other Democrats have grown increasingly worried that the strategy of downplaying Biden’s age as a distraction is the wrong approach to an issue that can’t be easily swept under the rug. While party insiders are privately fretting that Biden

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from Newsweek

Newsweek1 min read
The Archives
“Fewer than 14 percent of AIDS victims have survived more than three years after being diagnosed, and no victim has recovered fully,” Newsweek reported during the epidemic. AIDS, caused by severe HIV, has no official cure. However, today’s treatment
Newsweek3 min read
Newsweek US
GLOBAL EDITOR IN CHIEF _ Nancy Cooper EXECUTIVE EDITOR _ Jennifer H. Cunningham VICE PRESIDENT, DIGITAL _ Laura Davis DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS _ Melissa Jewsbury OPINION EDITOR _ Batya Ungar-SargonGLOBAL PUBLISHING EDITOR _ Chris Roberts SENIOR EDITOR-
Newsweek1 min read
Living On The Edge
An 18th-century cottage clings to the precipice following a dramatic cliff fall in the coastal village of Trimingham on April 8. The homeowner, who bought the property in 2019 for around $165,000, will now see the structure demolished as the saturate

Related Books & Audiobooks