Republican strategists are increasingly worried President Biden’s ability to serve nation after taking a tumble last week at an Air Force event, less than a year after telling voters to “watch me” if they don’t think he has what it takes to fulfill his duties to to another mandate.
Various Republicans have questioned whether 80-year-old Biden, the oldest person to serve as US president, is physically and mentally up to the intense demands of the White House for four more years. However, many who questioned his abilities had done so well before he fell at the graduation ceremony at the US Air Force Academy in Colorado last Thursday.
Last November, while taking questions from reporters at the White House, Biden dismissed the concerns of two-thirds of American voters who said in a poll that he should not seek re-election. “What is your message to them and how does that factor into your final decision about whether or not to run for re-election?” a reporter asked at the time.
“He doesn’t,” Biden replied. Asked again what his message would be to those who oppose his efforts to seek another term, Biden said, “Look at me.”
BIDEN’S FALL AT AIR FORCE COMMENCEMENT RAISES CONCERN, BENÍS: ‘THIS IS NOT FAIR FOR ANYBODY’
Some Republicans who have watched, however, tell Fox News Digital they are not impressed.
“We are all doing exactly what President Biden told us to do. We are watching and listening to him, and now we are more concerned than ever. He dismissed valid concerns about his ability to lead at his age and given that he has Vice President Kamala Harris The next in line, who can’t get through a written speech without getting lost and embarrassed, we should all be deeply concerned,” said Jason Rantz, Fox News contributor and radio host.
“The body and mind deteriorate as we age. It is normal. But he won’t admit it and that makes it look like he’s hiding even more problems,” Rantz added.
Similarly, Giancarlo Sopo, a Republican media strategist, said the fall of Biden would not have had as much of an impact on voters if “things were going well.”
“While I am glad that President Biden was not injured, his physical decline would not be such a great political liability for him if things were going well,” Sopo said. “However, more than 70% of Americans believe our country is headed in the wrong direction, and Biden’s job approval ratings are at record lows. Politicians often use charm offensives to improve their numbers , but that’s not an option available to him. Democrats know that, and that’s why they’re afraid to run against an energetic young leader like Gov. Ron DeSantis.”
Reflecting on Biden’s comments in November, Fox News contributor and civil rights attorney Leo Terrell said, “Biden’s ‘look at me’ moment is haunting him right now within his own party.”
“The elephant in the room is the fact that Democrats don’t want Joe Biden running in 2024. They’re stuck with him, though,” Terrell said. “Everybody knows that Joe Biden is not mentally fit to be the leader of the greatest nation on earth. Can you imagine the number of falls out of the public presence? It’s not just the falls: Joe Biden can’t put a coherent sentence together . The world is witnessing a man, mentally and physically unfit, who expects to remain in the White House for another 5 1/2 years.”
“The biggest nightmare is her replacement, Kamala Harris. She is the most incompetent and unqualified vice president ever. If you can put Democratic leaders in a silo, they will tell you the truth. Kamala Harris is not qualified to lead this nation. I personally wish Joe Biden the best possible health to avoid a Kamala Harris presidency.”
Colin Reed, a founding member of South & Hill Strategies who served as campaign manager for former Massachusetts Republican Sen. Scott Brown, said Biden’s downfall last week “reinforces the narrative” that he is too old to remain at the white house.
“In this age of digital and social media, video reigns supreme, and the political optics of President Biden’s downfall are as brutal as they are enduring. It reinforces the narrative that he’s simply too old for the job, a belief they have almost seven out of 10 voters and that cuts across party and ideological lines,” he said. “The incident is poised to start a debate about debates and a broader discussion about a challenge in the Democratic primary.”
“Domestic politics aside, we live in a dangerous world and the sight of an unstable and frail 80-year-old commander-in-chief falling on the national stage sends a dangerous message to our geopolitical enemies who wish our country ill.” , Reed added.
Kathy Barnette, the grassroots national director and adviser to Vivek Ramaswamy’s 2024 presidential campaign, said Biden’s “inability to lead our country precedes his latest stumble into a sandbag, sandbag, have in mind, that he had been on stage the whole time and that many others saw it.he avoided it, until Biden.
“Biden’s ‘Look at me’ mandate is indicative of how out of touch his entire administration is with the growing misery of American citizens,” added Barnette, a Republican Senate candidate in Pennsylvania last cycle. “He inherited an inflation rate of 1.7%, after being in office for less than a year it jumped to 8% and is now around 5%. Biden’s latest stumble reflects how he is running the country. Like him, we are all watching the country stumble, and we fear that she will not be able to recover and bounce back.”
Despite Republican concerns about his ability to serve, others, including Democratic strategists who are closely monitoring the 2024 race for the White House, insist that “too much is being made of the fall” and that Biden’s accomplishments in office, as opposed to his physical and mental abilities, are more important to to the voters
MIDDLE MEDIA DOES WELL FOR A PRO-BIDEN ‘TURN’ AFTER THE PRESIDENT FALLS: ‘IN THE TANK’
Boyd Matheson, host of KSL News Radio’s “Inside Sources” and former chief of staff to Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said it would be “a political mistake for Republicans to make a run against the president’s age and health in instead of running a race with a vision of the future.”
“Many Democrats are wringing their hands in worry, while many Republicans are licking their chops at the fall of President Biden this week,” he said. “Both miss the most important issue. Americans have dealt with a president in a wheelchair, one who tripped and hit his head frequently, one whose memory was beginning to fade, just to name a few some. This election will not be based on age or the frailties that come with it. It will be based on the strength and agility of an American agenda to meet the needs of the nation.”
“Yes, the president will need to demonstrate his mental prowess in debates and show his understanding of the issues in interviews while being able to connect with confidence in his interactions with the American people,” Matheson added. “The rigors of the job are real and President Biden has had his good and bad times over the last year and people will take his ‘look at me’ challenge seriously.
“I think the fall is an embarrassing moment for a president who needs to look down and whose health is clearly fragile. Most voters say he’s too old to run again,” said Mark Penn, in Democratic pollster and Fox News contributor.
“But more importantly, he negotiated a bipartisan budget deal and had a good jobs report, and those are most important to most Americans,” added Penn, who served as chief strategist for the presidential campaigns of former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Addressing the issue, Fox News contributor and Democratic strategist Jessica Tarlov said voters who are paying attention to what Biden is doing are “seeing a lot of success.”
“I think it’s getting too much of fall,” said Tarlov, who also serves as Bustle’s head of research. “If voters are looking at Biden and the work he’s doing, they’re seeing a lot of accomplishments — the debt ceiling bill and an incredible jobs report just this week. Concerns about his age are legitimate and not he should avoid, but there is no evidence that he cannot govern. The fall was unsightly and worrying, but it does not mean that he is not a very effective president.”
OK, Joe Trippi, senior adviser to the Lincoln Project, said Biden’s fall could not eclipse the president’s record.
“Time and time again, Joe Biden’s wisdom and experience have resulted in important bipartisan results for the American people,” he said. “The big result last week was his work to crush extremists in the House of Representatives and secure a bipartisan budget deal of more than 300 votes. His detractors will focus on a sandbagging stumble out of place”.
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“Biden got up, dusted himself off and got back to work. But maybe he was right when he joked, ‘I went down with a sandbag!'” Look at what he’s accomplished and how he gets up, dusts himself off and get back to work to find common ground for all Americans,” Trippi added.
Biden announced in an April video message that he and Harris would seek re-election next year to “finish the job” they started.
“When I ran for president four years ago, I said we were in a battle for the soul of America, and we still are. The question we face is whether we will have more freedom or less in the coming years freedom, more rights or less,” Biden said in the announcement.
Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.
