Not even presidents can reverse time, so there’s only so much Joe Biden can do to defuse one of his top general election liabilities – his advanced age.
But Biden, 81, appears to be in far better shape on this question than he was a week ago – and not just because he charged past the magic number of convention delegates needed to clinch the 2024 Democratic nomination on Tuesday evening.
The president’s vigorous State of the Union address has partly reset the political narrative and is still delivering dividends. The prime-time look at Biden in his element, dominating the stage, offered a robust counter-image to the one Americans have sometimes seen – of a bewildered statesman who cited phone chats with dead European leaders and confused Mexico and Egypt in a news conference meant to fix the age issue.
That debacle was prompted by special counsel Robert Hur’s report, which lifted the threat of Biden facing criminal charges for retaining classified documents after his vice presidency but described him as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” That characterization incited a furor and reignited debate over whether the president should step aside so a younger Democrat could carry the fight to presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump.
At one point in that angry appearance, Biden raged, “How in the hell dare he raise that?” referring to Hur’s depiction of his struggle to remember exactly when his son Beau died.
The reality of the interview now appears somewhat different than portrayed either by Hur or Biden or spun by Republican and Democratic operatives and reflected in media coverage.
The 258-page transcript released Tuesday shows Biden occasionally flustered and searching for dates. But the totality of the encounter doesn’t support Republican claims…
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