Doddering Donald: Team Biden is on a mission to convince voters Trump’s age is an issue too

Mod: Trump's brain age can be calculated in dog years.

Team Biden is on a mission to convince voters Trump’s age is an issue too (Semafor link): For months, headlines have focused on concerns surrounding President Joe Biden’s age and health. Polls indicate voters believe he’s too old to serve a second term; at least one Democrat is preparing to challenge Biden, in part because of age concerns; Biden’s stumbles (both verbal and physical) are quickly spread around social media and turned into articles; and there was even an Axios piece, which team Biden widely scoffed at, detailing the president’s “don’t-trip plan.”

Biden’s reelection campaign wants to change the narrative — or at least bring Donald Trump into the conversation.

In recent weeks, Biden’s campaign has begun highlighting the former president’s gaffes: Trump mixing up who the current president is; Trump “slurring” words during speeches; Trump making statements that don’t quite make sense. The effort is intentional, and due in part to a growing frustration among Biden’s campaign and allies with regard to what they see as an unequal media focus on the president’s age and health.

“If you guy’s are going to fucking cover every stumble of Joe Biden, then Donald Trump deserves the same scrutiny,” one national Democratic strategist close to the Biden campaign told Semafor, listing out some of Trump’s verbal missteps. “When Joe Biden does that, there’s wall-to-wall coverage of it.”

The president’s own team, along with Democrats backing his reelection bid, have long sought to dismiss age and health questions. Biden himself has declared his age simply means he’s more knowledgeable, and those around him argue that voters ultimately will make their decision based on other factors. At times Biden has also joked about it, including a pointed nudge to reporters at the White House Correspondents Dinner to give Trump the same treatment.

But his campaign is definitely taking the topic more seriously as of late, with ads and speeches that emphasize Biden’s stamina on trips abroad. Biden is not getting any younger before Election Day, and it’s unlikely the issue will ever fully go away. But the goal of the attacks on Trump isn’t to convince voters Biden’s suddenly found the fountain of youth: It’s to build a counternarrative about his opponent’s age that might give some reluctant voters permission to stick with the incumbent.