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CNN
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Even the president can’t turn back time, so there’s only so much Joe Biden can do to alleviate one of his biggest campaign responsibilities: aging.
But Biden, 81, appears to be in much better shape on the issue than he was a week ago. It’s not just because on Tuesday night he surpassed the magical number of convention delegates needed to win the 2024 Democratic nomination.
The president’s seminal State of the Union address partially reset the political narrative and is still paying dividends. In prime time, Biden is in his element, dominating the stage, and the bemused politics that Americans sometimes see him referencing phone conversations with deceased European leaders and confusing Mexico and Egypt at press conferences. It provided a strong image that contrasted with the image of a house. It aims to solve the age problem.
The debacle was sparked by a report by special counsel Robert Hur, which suggested that Biden could face criminal charges for keeping classified documents after becoming vice president. He described him as a “well-intentioned elderly person with a poor memory.” The characterization sparked outrage and reignited debate over whether the president should step down so a younger Democrat can take over the fight against presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump.
In such a fit of anger, Biden at one point exclaimed, “How in the world could you even bring that up?” This is a reference to Herr’s depiction of his son Beau struggling to remember exactly when he died.
The reality of the interview now appears to be somewhat different from what Mr. Xu and Mr. Biden are portraying, or what Republican and Democratic operatives have fabricated and reflected in media reports.
The 258 pages of records released Tuesday show Mr. Biden at times flustered and looking for dates. However, the entirety of this encounter does not support the Republican claims of severe cognitive decline. But the dossier also undermines Democratic claims that Mr. Hur, a former federal prosecutor in Maryland who was appointed by President Trump, was a fierce partisan bent on undermining the president.
A treasure trove for Biden watchers and historians
In the interview, Biden spoke at length and fluency, easily recalling detailed details about his time as vice president, his family life, and his lore. He veers off into a discussion about his power as a eulogist, waxes lyrical about his beloved Delaware, and even appears to be trying to sell Herr on the foreign policy merits of his administration.
While it may be a disappointment to Republicans looking for hard evidence, this record will be a treasure trove for future historians.
As Mr. Hsu examines the details of the archives, he gets the impression that the president is kind and, at times, a windy old politician who knows how to filibuster, something only a long-serving senator can do. . He is deeply proud of his family and his hometown, and is in love with his wife, First Lady Jill Biden, and he knows that Mr. Hsu has not found any “risque” photos of her. I hope. He makes long raids on cabinets and officers’ furniture and says he is something of an amateur architect. The exchange about Beau’s death from a brain tumor is difficult to read. But there is also pure comedy. Like when Biden touted his archery skills during a trip to Mongolia and said of the country’s prime minister, “Your poor son of a bitch couldn’t pull that back.”
Perhaps Mr. Hur wasn’t joking when he told Biden at the outset that he wanted some background but “I’m not going to ask you to take me to Scranton.” But anyone who knew Biden was celebrating his life as a scrappy kid in a blue-collar city in Pennsylvania would have a hard time holding back a laugh.
Although off topic, there is little evidence in the interview transcript that Biden is unfit or capable of the Oval Office. The Oval Office is an important mission at the center of President Trump’s fierce general election campaign.
Mr. Hsu defended his findings in a highly politicized House hearing on Tuesday, but also refused to give credence to Republican claims that Mr. Biden’s mental capacity was impaired. For example, Wisconsin Congressman Scott Fitzgerald asked him: Mr. Xu, did your report show that the president is aging? ” Mr. Hoa replied. That conclusion is not stated in my report. ”
The fact that Republican interrogators decided to focus more on the different outcomes for Biden and Trump from the retention of classified documents – Biden not being indicted and Trump being indicted – suggests that, at least for now, Biden’s age makes it more likely that Trump will be indicted. It may suggest that they understand that taking the shot didn’t have some effect. efficacy. (Mr. Trump has pleaded not guilty to federal charges brought by another special counsel related to the storage of documents at Mar-a-Lago.)
Similar confusion in Republican messaging was evident after Thursday’s State of the Union address. Republicans took to the event to criticize Biden as a stale old man. They came from complaints that his voice was too loud and noisy.
If Biden had provided more highlight footage of what Alabama Sen. Katie Britt called a “shaken and diminished” figure with a mocking reaction to the Republican Party after his annual televised address was a disaster, this week… It could have been a tough week for Biden. For example, he would add fuel to Republican attacks at Tuesday’s hearing, presenting evidence of a memory evaluation of Mr. Xu. Instead, his performance last week, followed by some upbeat campaign activity in battleground states this week, countered the narrative of decline that conservative media outlets have spent months crafting with Biden’s gaffe tape.
One person who isn’t ready to let go of the age issue is Trump, who is 77 years old himself. He sought to revive a long-running narrative about his rival by releasing a video of Biden stumbling on the steps of Air Force One and falling off his bike. . The former president’s focus on Biden’s age reflects the fact that a good week won’t change the harsh reality of the next eight months. Any signs of weakness in the campaign could renew doubts about Mr. Biden’s ability to not only perform his campaign role, but also defeat Mr. Trump, who has been cornered in several battleground states and key election issues. will be born.
Biden has implicitly acknowledged that this remains a vulnerability. In an ad released over the weekend, he said: “I’m not young, it’s no secret. But here’s the deal, I understand how to get things done for the American people.” He often complains that there is a double standard when it comes to age, as he has not been inferior for many years. But the ex-president’s bombastic, bombastic statements tend to undermine that criticism. The Biden campaign has also acknowledged, sometimes implicitly, that the president, though older, is not the virulent threat to the rule of law and the Constitution that his predecessor was.
Outside the self-contained world of Washington, politics and campaigning, concerns about Biden’s age will be hard to change. According to multiple polls, most Americans think Biden is too old to run. A New York Times/Siena College poll before the State of the Union found that even a majority of those who voted for Biden in 2020 think he is too old to be effective. The age issue was being talked about long before it became a major campaign issue. The White House claims the media is exaggerating anxiety and underestimating the true feelings of many voters who will consider their election choices in November.
Still, Biden’s age was just one issue in the election, with the president shifting from a referendum on Biden’s performance to a public vote on Trump’s efforts to claim a second term, preoccupied with retribution and revenge. I would like to shift to the denial of Meanwhile, Tuesday’s new government data showing a slight rise in inflation underscored the president’s vulnerability in the face of economic factors beyond his control. And the more the world’s backlash mirrors President Trump’s caricature of a planet heading toward World War III, the more difficult Biden’s campaign could become.
But after a successful State of the Union address and escaping pursuit of Mr. A breakthrough was recorded on the night of the claim.
“This is a ‘turn the page’ moment,” a campaign official told CNN’s MJ Lee. “The records are out. The hearing is over. Mr. Trump will continue to face prosecution over the documents, but for us, it’s effectively over.”
But after showing he was in command, Biden spent another eight months in a grueling campaign trial against an unchained opponent who was still years short of 80 points. We must keep fighting.
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