The old age, health and mental abilities of Joe Biden, the oldest president in the history of the United States (81 years old), are once again on the front page around the world. No one questions, however, those of his likely rival in November, Donald Trump, who is only four years younger.
All following a devastating report by special prosecutor Robert Hur, who served in the Department of Justice during the Republican's mandate, and who on Thursday did the best possible campaign for him, portraying the president as a senile old man, incapable of remembering basic dates. of his biography, including that of the death of his son. The subject of his investigation, however, was not Biden's age, but his retention of classified documents at his Delaware residence and in a former office in Washington, which he took with him when he left the vice presidency in 2017. .
The prosecutor decided not to file criminal charges, which would have made him the first president in history to be charged while in office. And he drew clear differences between his case and that of Trump, the first former president charged, who is accused of 40 crimes in Florida for taking a thousand government documents when he left the White House, a hundred of which were labeled 'classified'. , and retain them when justice demanded them. Biden had thirty in his possession and, unlike Trump, he cooperated with justice at all times, as Hur describes in his report.
These facts were cited as compelling reasons for not charging him, despite the fact that the prosecutor concluded that Biden had "voluntarily" taken the documents. But so was the state of his memory, which presented "serious limitations" during a five-hour deposition on October 8 and 9. According to prosecutor Hur, if criminal charges were filed, it would have been very difficult to convince the jury of Biden's guilt "for a serious crime that requires a voluntary state of mind."
The 345-page report described the president as a "well-intentioned old man with a bad memory" and with "faculties diminished by age." A direct attack on the main reason for Biden's unpopularity, the president with the lowest approval rating at this point in his term (38.6%) since 1948, in the third year of Harry Truman's presidency (36.1%), according to the FiveThirtyEight model.
What should have been a legal exoneration report became a new political crisis for a president who, certainly, has not contributed with his recurring lapses to amend the caricature that weighs on him. Immediately, Biden summoned the press urgently and gave a speech to the nation to try to stop the bleeding.
"I am glad to see that the prosecutor has come to the conclusion that there is not enough evidence to file charges against me," he remarked, "he has recognized that I cooperated, that I did not put up any obstacles, nor did I have any delays. In fact, I was so determined to give him what he asked of me, that I accepted a five-hour interview in person, five hours!, over two days, on October 8 and 9, even though Israel had just been attacked by Hamas on the 7th and I "he was too busy managing an international crisis."
Asked about his state of health, in the eye of the storm, he said: "I am well-intentioned, I am an old man, and I know what the hell I am doing. I am the president and I have put this country back on its feet. I don't need your recommendation ( of the prosecutor)". And he denounced the part of the devastating report in which Hur claims that Biden did not remember the dates when he was vice president and when his son died. "How the hell dare you put that," she said, seeming to choke back her tears, "every Memorial Day we hold a memorial service for him attended by friends and family. I don't need anyone to remind me when he passed away."
A crisis management, which ended up delving into the debacle: at the end of his statement, he confused the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, with the Egyptian Abdelfatah al Sisi. Hours earlier, he had confused a conversation he had in 2021 with Angela Merkel, stating that it had been with her predecessor, Helmut Kohl, who died four years before that date. It was the latest slip of a dark week: on Wednesday he confused the current president of France, Emmanuel Macron, with the president of four decades ago, François Mitterrand.
The Republicans took advantage of the occasion to add fuel to the fire and get angry at Biden. Senator Marco Rubio posted a tweet exaggerating the prosecutor's report: "he decided not to file charges against Biden because he believes he has age-related dementia." "The report confirms what Americans have been seeing through their screens for the past few years: that an old man with a bad memory is leading the US to war, inflationary disaster and lack of opportunity for taxpayers" said Chris LaCivita, one of Trump's top campaign strategists.
The tycoon, who has also made lapses recently – he confused Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi and the leaders of Hungary and Turkey –, benefits from a new episode that focuses media attention on Biden's age. According to a survey published this week by NBC News, Americans consider that he is more "qualified" for the position of president, leading his rival by 16%, when in 2020 Biden led by nine points on the same issue.
Old age and lapses are punishing Biden more electorally than the 91 criminal offenses charged in four different judicial processes against Trump. 76% of Americans are concerned about the president's health, while 61% are concerned about the Republican's legal problems, according to the same survey. Biden's campaign frames the November elections as a plebiscite between the constitutional order and the "existential threat to democracy" that Trump represents. But, nine months before the elections, the discourse of fear does not seem enough to achieve re-election.
