Donald Trump has repeatedly attacked Joe Biden on his age, portraying himself as an energetic leader in the face of an old man in decline. An argument that risks turning against him after the Democratic president withdraws and Kamala Harris, twenty years his junior, enters the race.
Without Joe Biden in the race, the 78-year-old Republican is now by far the oldest candidate, which “completely changes the dynamic” of the campaign, political scientist Matthew Foster told AFP.
For months, the billionaire’s team has taken great pleasure in posting videos of the 81-year-old Democratic president stumbling, stuttering, looking dazed or disoriented – as illustrations of his inability to govern.
Confused and disjointed tirades
On Monday, Donald Trump continued to mock the mental capacities of his former Democratic rival, assuring that Joe Biden did not “remember having abandoned the race”, accusing him of being “incapable of leading the country”.
A posture that could almost make us forget that the former president is not very young either.
If the Republican wins in November, he will be the oldest American president to be sworn in.
Do his repeated blunders, his string of confused and disjointed tirades, illustrate a decline of the ex-president? Or simple moments of confusion, of fatigue?
It is, in fact, impossible to say.
The Republican’s supporters point to his hour-and-a-half-plus speech in Milwaukee – just five days after he escaped an assassination attempt – as an illustration of his endurance.
But some observers also saw a candidate who was much more tired than usual, speaking slowly, sweating and with drawn features.
“When I lose my mind”
According to an ABC poll, 60% of Americans believed in mid-July that Donald Trump was too old to run for a second term.
As soon as Joe Biden withdrew, Donald Trump’s age was also pointed out.
The septuagenarian brushes these concerns aside.
In early January, he assured his followers that he had recently taken a cognitive test and passed it “with flying colors.” He promised, “I’ll let you know when I lose it, I really think I’ll be able to tell you.”
The Republican leader, however, is not subject to the same demands for medical transparency as when he was in the White House.
Almost no details have leaked for years about the health of the former presenter, a self-proclaimed fast-food lover. In mid-November, the Republican simply published a short letter from his doctor stating that he was in “excellent” health, and that he had lost weight – without specifying how much.
A few hours before Joe Biden’s withdrawal, his former White House doctor also released a rare health bulletin, but it only mentioned the after-effects linked to the shots that targeted him: “marked swelling of the entire upper part of the right ear.”
“78-year-old repeat offender”
Kamala Harris’ team, a candidate since only Sunday, is obviously still refining its electoral strategy. But there is no doubt that Trump’s age will be one of the 59-year-old candidate’s angles of attack.
In a statement sent to AFP on Monday, one of the vice president’s spokespersons, James Singer, has already described Donald Trump as a “78-year-old repeat offender who has spent decades ripping off the working class.”
“She’s going to bring a whole different energy” to the campaign, says Matthew Foster of American University, citing “her youth” but also her “aggressiveness.”
The former senator, an unsuccessful candidate in the 2020 Democratic primaries, particularly stood out during one of the televised debates.
Kamala Harris was then facing Joe Biden, whose torch she is now called upon to take up.