Age and health concerns about Joe Biden
[2][3] During the campaign for the 2024 United States presidential election, there was concern from the public and then-former President Donald Trump about his health and fitness for office.
[5] When his term ended, Biden was 82 years and 2 months old, the oldest sitting president in United States history upon leaving office.
In February 1988, after experiencing numerous episodes of increasingly severe neck pain, Biden underwent surgery to correct a leaking intracranial berry aneurysm.
[15] By 2019, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, CNN, The Atlantic, the Associated Press, and Slate all published articles on Biden's age and fitness for office.
[17] According to ABC News, Vladimir Putin and the Russian government spread disinformation about Biden's mental health during the 2020 presidential election,[18] and the Department of Homeland Security withheld publication of a bulletin warning law enforcement agencies about this campaign.
[26][27] During the general election, Joe Biden faced the same criticisms and was consistently attacked by his opponent Donald Trump on the issue of age and mental fitness.
[28] Furthermore, Trump and his campaign would often react to Biden's gaffes by making false claims that he was suffering from dementia, and by calling him "Sleepy Joe" at rallies.
[29][30] During Joe Biden's presidency, his former opponent Donald Trump and right-wing media outlets continued to perpetuate claims of dementia and cognitive decline.
[34] The Biden administration has routinely aimed to make light of the president's age by poking fun and joking about it, in a similar manner to Ronald Reagan.
[38][39] In 2022, a New York Times–Siena College poll found that 61% of Democratic voters wanted someone other than Biden to be the presidential nominee, citing his age as the main concern.
Biden is on medication for non-valvular atrial fibrillation (a form of irregular heartbeat), has an obstructive sleep apnea which he receives treatments through positive airway pressure, has a sensory peripheral neuropathy, and has a stiff gait due to spinal arthritis and the aftereffects of injury.
[49] According to another 2024 poll, most of those who voted for Biden in 2020 say they believe he is too old to be an effective president; The New York Times noted that these concerns "cut across generations, gender, race and education".
[50] The Wall Street Journal has reported that, Biden's team has limited his schedule, personal interactions, media appearances, interviews, and unscripted exchanges in order to minimize concerns about his age and mental acuity.
[53][54] Phillips argued during his campaign that President Biden would be a weak general election candidate due to his age and low approval ratings.
[71] Ultimately, House Republicans passed a motion to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress for not complying with the congressional subpoenas to release the recordings.
[75][76] Many officials and foreign leaders who encountered Biden in the months to year preceding the debate noticed he was increasingly frail, tired, meandering, and less lucid in his speech.
The resolution would have imposed a fine of $10,000 per day on Garland for defying a congressional subpoena until he handed over audio of former special counsel Robert Hur's interview with President Joe Biden.
Cline noted that a similar rule would have made both Trump and Biden ineligible to run in 2024 and argues that the evidence supporting a mandatory retirement age is strong.
