Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell cited his age as a reason to step down from his perch atop the GOP conference this fall at 82.
“One of life’s most underappreciated talents is to know when it’s time to move on to life’s next chapter,” McConnell said. “So I stand before you today … to say that this will be my last term as Republican leader of the Senate.”
On Inauguration Day next year, President Joe Biden will also be 82. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi left congressional leadership when she was 81.
President Biden received a physical exam on Wednesday. Doctors conducted no cognitive test on the commander-in-chief despite federal investigators deciding this month that Biden was too senile to face felony charges. The president’s physicians apparently waived a cognitive exam despite interviews with Special Counsel Robert Hur, wherein Biden forgot when he was vice president and failed to remember details about his son’s death.
“The president doesn’t need a cognitive test,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters. “That is not my assessment; that is the assessment of the president’s doctor. That is also the assessment of his neurologist.”
“Everything’s great!” Biden celebrated. But is it?
Biden has previously confused his wife and sister on stage, mumbled through the words of the Declaration of Independence, swapped “Super Tuesday” with “Super Thursday,” mixed up which office he was campaigning for, and wondered which state he was in, more than once. This was all before Biden won the Democratic nomination in 2020. Here was the former vice president during the fall general election campaign:
When Biden sought to reassure voters this month of his mental capabilities following Hur’s damning report, the president confused the president of Mexico with the president of Egypt.
Three-quarters of American voters, “including half of Democrats,” said they have serious reservations about Biden’s cognitive health and his ability to command the Resolute Desk, according to a recent NBC News poll. At 81, President Biden is already the oldest leader ever to hold the Oval Office, and he’s asking for a second term. Biden would be 86 by his White House retirement.
Donald Trump might be old, but he’s still not routinely mumbling his words or foaming at the mouth during press conferences.
Today, Trump is 77-years-old. He’ll be 78 at the time of Inauguration Day next year and would be 82 leaving the White House after a second term, the same age Biden will be when beginning another one.
