US Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley delivers a campaign policy speech on abortion in Arlington, Virginia, on Tuesday.
GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley has emphasized yet another reason why people shouldn’t vote for Joe Biden in 2024: He won’t be alive for five years.
Haley, 51, who has previously suggested there should be age limits and competency tests for the presidency, he made the grizzly prediction on Fox News on Wednesday, arguing that it would not be sad for the nation if the president died of an age-related illness in office, but instead vote for Biden is effectively a vote for Kamala Harris if that were to happen.
“He announced that he will run again in 2024, and I think we can all be very clear and say with certainty that if you vote for Joe Biden, you really are counting on a Harris president, because the idea that he would do until he was 86 is not something that I believe probable” Haley said, referring to how old Biden would be in 2028..
Haley’s comment comes a day after Biden, the oldest president in US history, launched his re-election bid with a fierce rebuke to MAGA Republicans and campaign merchandise that featured a popular Biden meme as a octogenarian fighter with glowing red eyes.
Other than his advanced age, there is no reason to believe that Biden will really be dead in five years. The president, who has already outlived the average American by about three years, earned a clean bill of health in February and exercises five days a week. according to your doctor. Biden’s most serious ailments are acid reflux and a stiff gait.
The Biden campaign did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment.
Haley’s comments are a darker, more outspoken version of the attack Republicans are expected to relentlessly deploy over the course of Biden’s reelection, suggesting that the 80-year-old is simply too old to be president, despite being only four years older than Donald Trump.
The attacks also serve to elevate Harris, a figure marginally less popular than Biden and whom the GOP is eager to criticize. While Republicans have struggled at times to demonize Biden, Harris is a more natural target for the racial and gender grievances that rouse core voters of him.
Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who is considering a run for the Republican nomination, made a similar point at an event in New Hampshire this month, telling town hall attendees that voting for Trump would be tantamount to endorsing Harris since Biden would win. to Trump. before presumably dying in office.
“A vote for Donald Trump is a vote for Kamala Harris,” Christie said, according to The New York Times. (Christie is known to have struggled with his own health, undergoing gastric band surgery in 2013.)
Meanwhile, Republicans are hesitant to go after Trump because of his own advanced age. The former president, who is overweight and known to eat fast food, became sick enough with the coronavirus in 2020 that he required oxygen and hospitalization, putting former Vice President Mike Pence dangerously close to the presidency.
Biden, who appeared at a news conference alongside South Korean President Yoon Suk-Yeol at the White House on Wednesday, referred to his advancing age for the first time since announcing his re-election, saying he had “looked closely “Your own age before taking out the activate a campaign. (In 2019, Biden offered to fight a reporter who questioned his age.)
“When I guess how old I am, I can’t even say the number. It doesn’t register for me,” Biden told reporters. “People will see a career and judge if I have it or not. I respect that they look at it carefully, I would look at it carefully, and I did look at it carefully before I decided to run. I feel good and am excited about the prospects.”
Polls indicate that concerns about Biden’s age are a major factor driving dissatisfaction with his performance as president. An NBC News poll, released on sundayfound that 70% of Americans did not want Biden to run for a second term, while only 26% wanted him to run again.
Among those who said they did not want Biden to run again, a plurality of 48% said his age was a major factor, while 21% said it was a minor factor. Only 29% said it was not part of their reason for opposing a bid for a second term.
Concerns about Biden’s age and sharpness spill over to the Democratic Party. Only 56% of Democrats said Biden was “mentally sharp” in a Pew Research Center Survey earlier this month. Only 31% of adults overall described it that way.
TO Suffolk University/USA Today poll Meanwhile, since December it has been found that most Americans think the best age for a president is between 51 and 65. But there is little evidence that age concerns override partisanship or other factors.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who evaded concerns about her advancing age from her fellow Democrats for years, said yesterday that the party could quickly overcome its concerns about Biden’s age.
“Yeah, they would prefer it to be younger,” Pelosi, 83, said at a TIME magazine event. “But they are all for him.”
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