By Max Burns
At 78, former President Donald Trump is now the oldest presidential nominee in American history. If he wins re-election in November, Trump will end his term just a few months shy of his 83rd birthday, making him two years older than President Joe Biden is now.
In short, Donald Trump has a serious age problem.
The media and Republican political leaders should treat concerns about Trump’s advanced age every bit as seriously as they did in Biden’s case. Trump can put those concerns to rest by making good on his promise to take a public cognitive test. Is he still willing to “do it for the good of the country,” as he said back on July 12?
After all, comparing footage from Trump’s 2015 presidential announcement to footage from earlier this year shows that Trump isn’t quite the man he used to be. The former president now routinely confuses names when speaking off the cuff — including the name of his own doctor — and struggled to finish his sentences during a Nashville rally earlier this year. How can the American people be sure Trump’s stumbles aren’t part of a sustained pattern of cognitive decline?
Trump has repeatedly said he believes all presidential candidates should be “mandated to take a cognitive test” regardless of age. There’s no time like the present, because the concerning evidence of Trump’s mental decline has been mounting for years.
His memory problems are well-documented; the former president doesn’t seem able to recall what he was doing or who he spoke to for most of the day on Jan. 6, 2021. He also regularly forgets who the sitting president is, often confusing Joe Biden and Barack Obama during unscripted remarks. That seems pretty important.
Concerns about how Trump’s age could weigh on the Republican ticket aren’t exclusive to Democrats like me. Sixty percent of voters now believe Trump is too old to serve, according to a post-debate ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll. That’s up from 44 percent a little over a year ago. Of voters who watched Trump’s rambling debate performance last month, fully 50 percent believe the former president should withdraw from the race and focus on his mental health.
Even some Republicans can see the writing on the wall. Back in January, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley warned GOP voters that “the first party to retire its 80-year-old candidate is going to be the one who wins the election.” So far, only Democrats have responded to that national concern by acting in the nation’s best interest.
Biden’s departure may not change Haley’s mind, but it certainly resonated with the pro-Haley PAC Haley Voters for Biden.
“We support Joe Biden’s recommendation and will immediately change the name of our organization to Haley Voters for Harris,” the group posted on X, formerly Twitter. “There is no time to lose.”
With Democrats’ switch to presumptive nominee Kamala Harris, Trump is facing down a far more active campaign schedule than he’s used to. Harris criss-crossing the country to rally voters on popular issues like reproductive freedom leaves Trump with less golfing time than ever. Voters still aren’t convinced Trump is up to the demanding task of mounting a full-scale campaign.
That could be one reason why Trump’s campaign team is collectively melting down over Biden’s decision to step away from the 2024 campaign. After spending hundreds of millions of dollars and countless months building a campaign entirely on the idea that Biden is senile and doddering, Trump now faces a candidate nearly 20 years his junior. Concerns that Trump’s age may become a decisive factor have reached such a fever pitch that some Republicans are even threatening to sue the Democratic Party into keeping Biden on the ballot. There’s just one problem: Biden never formally was named the Democratic nominee.
Trump now faces the nightmare scenario of spending the next four months away from his Mar-a-Lago golf course and instead chasing Harris around the country in a desperate attempt to show his vim and vigor. It will be hard for him to match Democrats’ enthusiasm for their new ticket — Harris has so far raised over $250 million in just two days, erasing the RNC’s fundraising advantage.
Just two weeks ago, Donald Trump pledged to walk together with the Democratic nominee to a doctor’s office where they would both take a “unity” cognitive test. So where is he?
Max Burns, a veteran Democratic strategist and founder of Third Degree Strategies is Opinion Contributor, The HILL
