Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., defended President Biden's age on Sunday by claiming other countries praise older leaders for their wisdom.
Following the viral video of Biden tripping on stage after a speech on Thursday, the topic about the president’s age and fitness for office returned to the spotlight as a potential issue in the upcoming presidential election.
CNN’s "State of the Union" host Dana Bash questioned the Democratic lawmaker on the topic noting, "You, as a politician, know about how events feed into a perception that already exists. Questions about his age are already there. Are voters wrong to be worried about re-electing a man who would be closer to 90 at the end of his second term than 80?"
"You know, America is a country that loves youth and vitality, you know, which is why we have laws against age discrimination, because we tend to favor youthfulness and the new thing. In a lot of countries, people who have been in office a longer period of time are praised for their wisdom," Raskin said.
He added, "And I think that Joe Biden rightly says that he has grown very wise in his many decades in public office and I respect that. So, I think that he deserved to be judged by the results of his administration and what he’s gotten done in terms of a bipartisan infrastructure law, the Inflation Reduction Act, lowering prescription drug prices. I mean, really, that’s what should matter to us as the people."
A group of Biden voters told the New York Times in a piece in May that one of their most pressing issues about Biden is his age and "cognitive decline."
A Pennsylvania voter said, "I believe everybody underneath him is giving him advice and running things, so to speak. But the guy is 80 years old. His cognitive decline has been pretty evident the last two years, that we’ve seen, and I just see it getting worse."
The voter added, "I’ve just seen the blank stare at times, when he’s either giving a speech or addressing a crowd. It seems like he loses his train of thought. And my own father is 84, and he’s got early-onset dementia. And you can tell him something five times within a span of half an hour, and he’ll keep asking you the same thing over and over again."
By contrast, a New York Times article suggested that Biden was still "sharp and wise" despite his age.
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"The two Joe Bidens coexist in the same octogenarian president: Sharp and wise at critical moments, the product of decades of seasoning, able to rise to the occasion even in the dead of night to confront a dangerous world," the article stated. "Yet a little slower, a little softer, a little harder of hearing, a little more tentative in his walk, a little more prone to occasional lapses of memory in ways that feel familiar to anyone who has reached their ninth decade or has a parent who has."
