Joe Biden is unable to assure voters that he can handle another presidential term, his team “has no plan” for how to deal with his senile behavior, and he simply “should not run for re-election,” according to New York Times writers. .
The anxiety of the liberal Times’ editorial board and opinion writers shows how worried they are that the ailing Biden won’t be able to defeat “bad man” Donald Trump this year.
The back-to-back op-eds stabbing the elderly president, 81, over the weekend come after a Justice Department report criticized his handling of classified documents and portrayed him as a forgetful old man.
Special prosecutor Robert Hur’s 388-page report confirmed that he would not be charged, but said that was because a jury would likely conclude that he had “diminished faculties” and was a “well-intentioned old man with a short memory.”
Biden’s lack of enthusiasm on the campaign trail, along with his faltering public appearances and “grumpy grandpa” attitude, are major concerns during this “dark time” of his presidential term, according to the left-leaning newspaper.
“He needs to do more to show the public that he is fully capable of holding office until he is 86,” the Times board said Sunday.
The back-to-back op-eds stabbing the aging 81-year-old president come after a Justice Department report was released about his handling of classified documents.
On February 9, the New York Times editorial board published an honest and damning op-ed titled: ‘The challenges of an aging president.’
The newspaper team concluded: ‘This is a dark moment for Mr Biden’s presidency.
They said Biden’s performance at his Thursday night news conference was “intended to assure the public that his memory is fine and to argue that Mr. Hur was out of line,” but this is not what happened.
Instead, according to the op-ed, “the president raised more questions about his cognitive acuity and temperament, while giving emotional and pointed responses at a time when people were looking for firm, consistent and capable answers to fair questions about his condition.” physical”.
The board wrote: ‘Your assurances…did not work. He must do better: There is too much at stake in this presidential election for Biden to expect to be able to power through a campaign with the help of teleprompters and aides and somehow defeat an opponent as glaringly inadequate as Donald Trump.
They admitted that Trump “has a very real chance of retaking the White House.”
The article suggested that his advisors are hiding Biden because of his senile age, and instead of campaigning with people and building trust, he is doing the opposite.
It said: ‘The combination of Mr Biden’s age and his absence from the public stage has eroded public trust. It seems as if he is hiding, or worse yet, as if he is hiding.
“The details of Mr. Hur’s report will only add to those concerns, which Mr. Trump’s campaign is already exploiting.”
This was not the only op-ed highlighting Biden’s senescence published in the New York Times this weekend.
Maureen Dowd, 72, is a longtime Times journalist and opinion writer. She published a column on February 10 with the headline: ‘Mr. President, abandon the secrecy on health.’
He wrote for the NYT: “Healthcare secrecy is no longer possible, and the sooner President Biden’s team stops denying it, the better off Democrats will be.”
The liberal columnist argued that Biden has wrapped himself in bubble wrap and that going on the defensive when Trump is on the offensive at a time when “the world is on fire” won’t work for Democrats.
Dowd argued that Jill Biden and her advisers have tried to find ways to “hide the signs of senescence,” but none of their tricks have worked.
As a result of trying not to come across as a “grumpy grandpa”, he has in fact come across as a full-blown “grumpy grandpa”.
President Joe Biden (L) and former President Donald Trump (R)
Dowd said that even though Biden running against a “bad man,” Trump, is “not enough” and he needs to “acknowledge to himself that his moments of hesitation are a great weakness.”
The NYT writer said: ‘Many Americans are quite concerned about the 81-year-old president’s twilight countenance. He’s the elephant in the room, except elephants never forget.
‘Donald Trump, 77, makes his own verbal slips and shows signs of aging, but he transmits more energy.
‘When the president rushed out Thursday night to demonstrate that he was compos mentis, refuting what special prosecutor Robert Hur said, he became testy with the media and blamed his staff for mishandling classified documents.
Petulance is never a good face. Biden should have taken a breath.
‘Rejecting the image of a cantankerous grandfather, he gave the impression of being a cantankerous grandfather. “I mean well and I’m an old man, and I know what the hell I’m doing,” she barked.
Dowd argued that Biden’s team “clearly has no plan for how to deal with the president’s age except to protect him and hide him and intimidate reporters who point out that his mental state is a genuine problem.”
He sternly warned: “Democrats should take their smelling salts for a long case of the fumes.” It is going to be a most virulent and violent year.”
The third scathing op-ed published by the New York Times this weekend about Biden came from political analyst Ross Douthat, 44.
His damning article was titled: ‘The question is not whether Biden should step aside.’ Sample.’
Douthat wrote in the Times: ‘Joe Biden should not run for re-election.
“The impression the president gives in public is not so much one of senility as one of extreme fragility, like a light bulb that stays on as long as you keep it on.”
He said that if Biden withdraws and anoints Vice President Kamala Harris, “he’s even more likely to lose to Donald Trump.”
But, he says, “If you step down and don’t endorse your own number two, you’d be opening yourself up to a narrative of identity betrayal (an elderly white president stabbing the first black vice president) and you’d be grooming your party.” for months of bloodshed and betrayal, a constant churning of personal and ideological drama.’
According to the latest polls, Biden’s chances of being the Democratic candidate have decreased fell to just 60 percent, giving a boost to potential candidates Michelle Obama, Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris.
This comes as a new poll showed that Americans are deeply skeptical about Biden’s mental capacity to serve a second term as he begins to seriously make his case for re-election.
A full 76 percent of voters have significant or moderate concerns about Biden, 81, being physically and mentally healthy to serve a second term, according to a new NBC poll.
A surprising 62 percent of voters in the survey say they have “major concerns” about Biden’s physical and mental health.
The poll reflects the mood on the campaign trail, as Biden’s aides are increasing the number of campaign events but also risking more embarrassing moments for the president.
This week, Biden’s staff struggled to explain why the president repeatedly referred to deceased European leaders as if they were still in power.
The poll reflects the mood on the campaign trail, as Biden’s aides are increasing the number of campaign events but also risking more embarrassing moments for the president.
This week, Biden’s staff struggled to explain why the president repeatedly referred to deceased European leaders as if they were still in power.
The survey of 1,000 registered voters was conducted from Jan. 26 to Jan. 30, before Biden’s confusion in speaking with two different world leaders who died before the events he remembered.
On Wednesday, Biden recalled a 2021 conversation with German Chancellor Helmut Kohl during a fundraising event in New York City. Kohl died in 2017.
On Sunday, Biden discussed a 2021 conversation with François Mitterrand, a French president who died in 1996.