Voters told Vice President Joe Biden they want him to ignore it

The Electoral Record of Donald Biden: A Brief History of the First Two-Term Presidential Campaign and the Implications for the Democratic Party

Editor’s Note: Julian Zelizer, a CNN political analyst, is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author and editor of 24 books. Follow him on social media. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. CNN has more opinion on it.

When presidential approval ratings fall to where President Biden’s numbers have been – between the high-30s and mid-40s this year – that normally spells massive defeat. See, for examples, Donald Trump (38%) in 2018, Obama (46%) in 2010, Bill Clinton (41%) in 1994. The issues of high inflation, turbulent financial markets, and concerns about crime that Republicans have favored are big issues in most polls.

Democrats did extremely well in states such as Michigan and Pennsylvania. Many of the election deniers that had been running lost. Even in states where Democrats were walloped, such as in New York, there were bright spots, including Gov. Kathy Hochul’s victory over the Trump-endorsed Republican Lee Zeldin.

The outcome surprised both parties. Since World War II, the party of the president has typically performed poorly in the first midterm of an administration, with an average loss of 26 seats in the House and four seats in the Senate. The Republicans lost seats in the House of Representatives in the year that Donald Trump was president. Democrats lost more in the House in 2010 than they did in 1994.

Many expected the red wave to happen. Even if Republicans are in control of one or both chambers, their majority won’t be that great. Democrats won’t face the “shellacking” that they experienced in 2010.

His party must show support for his re- election. We put our faith in Mr. Biden, but he still faces questions about his age, physical condition and whether or not the White House will be in his hands. He should take precautions to make sure the party is taking these concerns seriously, but he and the rest of the party should consider making bold decisions to address the actuarial concerns and show they are taken seriously.

And unlike 2016, when he was the outsider, voters now have vivid memories of the turbulence and instability of his first term. Perhaps most importantly, Republicans have seen the losses he brought to the party in 2020 and 2022. Ron DeSantis, the Governor of Florida, is a potential opponent who can do Trumpism in a way that is more politically effective and doesn’t carry the same kind of risks.

BothTrump and Biden fulfilled their stated main objectives, by drawing attention to the plight of the “forgotten” men and women of our country, and by questioning the logic of globalization that turned a blind eye to the rise of China.

To be sure, Democrats should check their enthusiasm. Even with narrow majorities, a Republican-controlled House of Representatives can cause immense problems for Biden. They are able to obstruct his legislation, investigate him and his family, and steer the agenda in a way that is damaging to Democrats. If Republicans also gain control of the Senate, they too can double down on the obstruction, including with Biden’s judicial picks.

No, Trump isn’t anywhere close to done. He can be effective in service of his own candidacy by unleashing his fire and fury. He still commands intense support within the party and retains a keen sense of operating in the modern media environment. Meanwhile, DeSantis comes out of this week looking a bit like George W. Bush in 1998, when he won his gubernatorial reelection bid in a landslide two years before securing the presidency in 2000. He could pose a serious threat to the Democrats if he were to pull of a more polished version of Trumpism because of his ability to appeal to the core of the Republican Party.

The Joe Biden Experience Counts: Implications for the 2020 White House and the Emerging Paradoxes in the Age of Turbulence

Those numbers are consistent with polling conducted in the run-up to this year’s election. The poll from September found that most of the Americans don’t want Biden to run for reelection. Democrats in that poll were sharply divided on the question: 52% said he should run again while 48% said he shouldn’t.

Voters have doubts about Bidens age, and so they are not going to be comforted by watch me alone. After two years watching Biden in office, two-thirds of voters think he shouldn’t run again. So there’s that.

Reading rapidly through his prepared remarks and occasionally sparring with his congressional adversaries in real time, Mr. Biden — at 80 the oldest president in history — used the biggest platform of his office to frame his argument for an expected re-election bid by portraying Republican policy proposals as out of step with most Americans even as he offered to work across the aisle.

“People feel like it’s a turbulent world that we’re living in, and it is a strength for Joe Biden to be able to point to not just years of experience in government up to this point, but more immediately his last two years in the White House being able to get things done, despite the turbulence,” said a second Biden adviser. The idea that his experience is benefiting him, is highlighted by the contrast of chaos and extremists from Republicans in the House.

One of the emerging paradoxes in the 2024 race is revealed in the poll. Even though they are the most powerful figures in their parties, both Biden and Trump appear vulnerable as the two-year campaign begins, and could face difficulty from a shifting political environment or age.

Voters are pining for a break from the past, even as President Joe Biden and Donald Trump are working towards a rerun of the most turbulent White House race in modern history.

Trump was regularly winning big primaries in 2016 with between 30% and 40% of the vote in a large field. In the poll, a majority of Republicans and Republican- leaning independents said they want Trump to be the nominee again. More than two-thirds of those said they would probably or definitely back him in the election if he were the nominee.

Of course, it’s early. In a volatile age with crises at home and abroad, logic, history, polls, and pre-race predictions often don’t count for much.

But the race is on, whether voters want it or not. Early perceptions of the contenders’ strengths are important since they shape the decisions of potential rivals and donors in the early money chase. Trump is already a declared candidate, although he could use a relaunch after a dull start, and Biden is giving every sign he will run in the new year, suggesting he will let the country know early on.

The midterm elections, in which Democrats held the Senate and Republicans won a tiny House majority, help explain the poll’s findings. Voters hoping for a return to the normality Biden had promised after generational public health and inflation challenges weren’t exactly enthused with the president, whose low approval numbers largely kept him off the campaign trail in battleground states. They didn’t trust a GOP that still controlled Trump to fix things.

But the president ends the year in better political shape than Trump, and appears to have stabilized his slump. This summer, only 25% of Democrat-aligned voters wanted him to be their nominee. The figure is now 40%. A sitting president usually has a greater advantage against a primary challenger than those who want someone else.

Republican politics may, or may not, be at a moment of transition. The way things shake out in the next few months could have a big impact on Trump’s prospects. On the one hand, more and more Republicans – prompted by the failure of many of the ex-president’s hand-picked candidates in the midterms – are saying it’s time to move on.

The argument that Trump’s general election viability is damaged beyond repair has been strengthened by his dinner with extremists with a record of antisemitism. It appears Trump’s campaign was supposed to make it simpler for him to portray criminal probes into his conduct as persecution.

The 10 Major Political Questions that will Shape the Next 2023 Elections in Washington, DC & Beyond: The Case of Bill Clinton and the State of the Union

There will be a lot of changes in the House Republican caucus with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia becoming an important voice. But Democrats who lived through the partisan wars of the 1990s will remember how Republicans ultimately helped bolster embattled former President Bill Clinton’s standing, as his approval ratings skyrocketed. Americans were of the opinion that the House GOP was too extreme to govern. The Gingrich era GOP leaders are looking like statesmen because of the current House Republican caucus.

There will be another campaign to see if there is any erosion in Trump’s base. But even if his mythical connection to those voters might not be enough to win him the presidency, it could still carry him to his third straight nomination. The fact that most Republican lawmakers are unwilling to repudiate Trump over his comments suggests that they are still under the sway of his supporters. Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader of the house, has found ways to ignore Trump’s associations with extremists in order to win the speaker’s gavel.

GOP hopefuls will see 32% in a CNN poll as an opening for an anti- Trump candidate. But another big field could splinter opposition to the ex-president among untested potential foes.

Some of the same advisers who thought that the president’s age was the biggest liability when he was young also worried about it when he was older, and that is why these doubts are just the latest way of underestimating him.

These days, even off-cycle years in American politics can be quite significant in shaping the future of the country. As we head into 2023, there are 10 major political questions that will be critical to determining what comes next in Washington, DC – and beyond.

This is the big economic question that affects how the electorate views the state of the union. Over the past year, rising prices have led to the economy being the central emerged as the central problem facing the Biden administration, with concerns about grocery bills and gas prices fueling anxiety in the electorate and causing turbulence in the stock market. The chances of a recession were increased when the Fed raised interest rates. The Fed can pull back and create more pocketbook stability if inflation is cooling down. But should inflation continue to dog the economy – or should a recession set in – the administration will certainly struggle at the ballot box in 2024.

Former President Donald Trump has already announced that he is running in 2024. The war against the world message that he preached in 2016 against crowded field of Republican challengers is what he has started to roll out again. The first time he did this, he came on the campaign trail with a lot of baggage. He is being investigated by multiple agencies, and could face criminal charges from the House January 6 committee. Trump has minimized the investigations as politically motivated and denied any wrongdoing.

The 2022 Midterms and 21st Century: What Do We Expect to Learn from the Russian Pandemic, and What Will They Mean for the United States?

In the 2022 midterms, it became clear that the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade played a huge role in the success of Democrats. Many Democratic voters were energized to elect officials who would support the right of women to determine their own reproductive decisions. The Supreme Court is considering a bunch of decisions, including how it will rule on a radical legal doctrine of “independent state legislative theory”, which could give state legislative bodies power to overturn the results of an election. These decisions have the ability to have a large impact on the state of the election process and the motivation of voters going into November 2024.

The Russian war against Ukraine has already had huge ramifications in the United States. Inflation has many roots, but the cost of losing Russia’s oil supplies has been significant. There have been emerging partisan tensions within the US about how much support to provide Ukraine, while policymakers at the Department of Defense keep a close eye on Russia to see if desperation will drive it to, for example, attack a NATO country. There may be more than Ukraine that needs to be considered. We don’t know what is around the corner in international policy. At any point in time, a crisis can irrevocably change our national conversation.

The pandemic showed how public health crises can upend politics within the span of a few days. New issues were pushed to the top of the agenda to define the litmus test that elected officials would be measured on. Currently, because of the successful vaccine program, the recent impact of Covid-19 largely has been curtailed even though the virus continues to cause sickness and death. We will be in the danger zone for a while, as we have seen with the triple combination of the flu, Covid-19, andRSV. There is always the chance that challenges will be brought up in the political realm.

While the elections of 2016 were a disappointment for election deniers, election denialism is still a strong force in the GOP. Some people are ready to challenge results that don’t go their way. Red states insist on restrictions on voting. The January 6 committee report exposed just how vulnerable our democracy remains. Even with the passage of the Electoral Count Reform Act, there are many ways in which anti-democratic forces can exert influence in 2024. The democratic system will have an effect on the results.

Huckabee Sanders in the State of the Union: How the Future of the U.S. will look like in December 2023

And of course, there are always the unexpected questions that await us. Any good list about what is to come must account for all the things that aren’t even being imagined right now. Few predictive pieces in December 2019, after all, would have included a global pandemic.

But we can know this for certain: 2023 will be a big one, a political rollercoaster which will clarify the terms that will help determine the next president of the United States.

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders gave a combative speech Tuesday evening in response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, drawing a sharp contrast with Biden as she delivered a series of blistering criticisms of the president.

McCarthy called Sanders “a servant-leader of true determination and conviction,” in a statement and said that she will share a “bold vision for a better America on Tuesday. Everyone, including President Biden, should listen carefully.

The president highlighted his priorities and agenda to the nation in his speech and this gave the presidential candidate an opportunity to speak to the country and counter Biden.

It was during his time as White House press secretary that he gained national prominence, as he was often at odds with national reporters.

She made history last year as the first woman elected as governor of Arkansas. Her father, Republican Mike Huckabee, served as governor of the state from 1996 to 2007.

This year’s State of the Union took place with Republicans newly in control of the House, a position of power the GOP is using to launch congressional oversight investigations aimed at the Biden administration.

“In Washington, under the leadership of Senate Republicans and Speaker Kevin McCarthy, we will hold the Biden administration accountable,” Sanders said in a nod to the new political order in the nation’s capital.

The First Lady and the First Lady of the Iraq War: Trump and the Road Towards a Better American Way: A Memoir with President Benjamin Biden

“During my two and a half years at the White House, I traveled on every foreign trip with the president,” she said, saying that she “will never forget” a trip that took place on December 25, 2018.

“We landed in the war-torn part of western Iraq,” Sanders said, and described a scene where hundreds of troops “who were in the fight against ISIS” had gathered in a dining hall to celebrate Christmas.

“They had absolutely no idea that the president and first lady were about to walk into that room,” she said, saying that when that happened, “the room erupted. Every demographic, race, religion, and political party began chanting “USA, USA, USA” in perfect unison.

After being sworn in as governor, Sanders signed a flurry of executive orders, with one targeting critical race theory “to prohibit indoctrination” in schools and another barring the use of the term “Latinx” in official state documents.

McConnell said in a statement that Huckabee is a powerful advocate for the conservative principles that will put our country back on a better course.

Mr. Biden put forward a menu of policy proposals that could attract bipartisan support, despite them not generating much applause from Republicans. There were initiatives to tackle the opiate epidemic, enhance cancer research and treatment, increase access to mental health services, and improve benefits for veterans.

Mr. Biden still did not shy from the fight. Even when he was promoting bipartisanship, he relished jabbing Republicans. He pointed out how many Republicans voted against the infrastructure package yet still requested money from it for their districts.

The Birth of a New Generation of Republican Leadership in the House of Representatives: Marty Walsh, the Labor Secretary, and Martha Sanders

Absent from the chamber, though, was Marty Walsh, the labor secretary who was chosen to stay away as a designated survivor in case of a catastrophe at the Capitol and is reported to be stepping down soon.

In his speech, Mr. Biden called on congress to extend the cap on the price of instuments for Medicare beneficiaries and to make premium savings on health plans permanent, among other things.

Ms.Sanders pursued him after he passed his age. “At 40, I’m the youngest governor in the country. She said that at 80, he was the oldest president in American history. She added: “It is time for a new generation of Republican leadership,” without saying whether that meant her former boss, Mr. Trump, who is 76, should be nominated for a third time.

The scrimmage between the president and the Republicans will provide Americans with a better idea of what the president is saying, according to an adviser to Mr. Biden.

“Clearly, having the House Republican caucus behaving the way they are, and are signaling strongly they will continue to behave, is going to give the president an easy contrast,” she said. He is getting a way to draw a contrast between what he wants and what the Republicans are trying to accomplish with him.

Covering Politics on CNN: Pat Brown and the Problem of Debt Reduction in the House of Representatives of the House Intelligence Committee

How Times reporters cover politics. Our journalists are independent observers. Times staff can vote, but not campaign for candidates or political causes. Participation in rallies and marches in support of a movement or raising funds for political candidates is included.

But Republicans so far have not said how they propose to reduce spending by a large enough amount to achieve their debt reduction goals. The idea of making all laws expire five years after they are enacted has been floated by a number of Republicans.

Editor’s Note: Patrick T. Brown is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative think tank and advocacy group based in Washington, DC. He is also a former senior policy adviser to Congress’ Joint Economic Committee. He can follow himself on social media. The views he gives in this piece are his own. View more opinion on CNN.

The First Major Republican Challenge to Mr. Trump from the 1918 Flu Pandemic: A State of the Union, Not a Shaken War

Millions of people died in the 1918 flu outbreak and its impact on daily life was similar to the recent coronaviruses pandemic. It vanished with no trace in popular culture after it was over. Americans were ready to turn the page on war and pestilence and let loose in the roaring ’20s.

At its best, President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech offered that forward-looking vision, highlighting his administration’s commitment to rebuilding America’s supply chain and spurring innovation. But no amount of rhetoric could disguise the fact that our political system could be on a collision course to offer up the rematch no one is asking for.

It’s still early. But a 2024 presidential election that features another slugfest between two elderly leaders rather than a scrappy fight between up-and-coming politicians with energy and enthusiasm would be doing the nation a disservice.

Republicans who want to take the battle to “woke” institutions and push back against the left’s excesses know that the DeSantis model can produce results at the state level.

The G.O.P. primary starts. For months, former President Donald J. Trump has been the lone Republican officially running for president in 2024, but that’s no longer the case with Nikki Haley entering the race. It is the first major Republican challenge to Mr. Trump. Here’s a look at the potential field:

The Age of the Revolution: Reflecting the History of the United States as a Socially Responsible and Respectful People. Editorial Note: Julin Castro, President Jimmy Carter and Clarity Media Group

The explicit age-based argument can backfire if a younger candidate tries to push a more experienced candidate aside. Former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julin Castro learned the hard way that attack lines that seem to focus on an older candidate’s memory or hearing do not play well. Any politician trying to campaign against a more senior opponent would have to be careful about not sounding dismissive toward older Americans’ ability to contribute – after all, senior citizens are reliable voters.

The president and his predecessor were involved in a number of important events including the creation of NATO, the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the first color TV broadcast and the state of Israel.

Having seen the long sweep of history is a wisdom and perspective that is age and valuable. The desire for a change is not an expression of age, it is a recognition of demands of the job, and need for new voices and ideas is something both the President and the former President should know about.

Whether that’s a younger Democratic nominee more effectively tapping into discontent over the Dobbs decision’s impact on abortion rights, or a Republican candidate speaking, as a parent of young children, about the need to better protect kids online, a passing of the generational torch will allow for a much-needed shift of focus to fresh challenges.

Editor’s Note: Bill McGowan is the founder and CEO of Clarity Media Group, a global communications coaching firm based in New York. He is the author of “Pitch Perfect: How to Say It Right the First Time, Every Time.” Juliana Silva is a strategic communications adviser at Clarity. The views expressed in this commentary are solely those of the authors. CNN has more opinion articles.

Revisiting Biden in the House: “Enough is enough”: A Demonstration of His State of the Union

That disarming tactic was again on full display during his State of the Union address when he sarcastically told Republicans who voted against the infrastructure bill he signed into law in 2021, yet claimed credit for the jobs it’s bringing to their home districts, “see you at the groundbreaking.”

The answer, it seemed, was yes – in part thanks to a new breed of House Republicans more than willing to create chaos in the absence of former President Donald Trump himself.

The puzzling question is why are political opponents like Greene creating the same stark contrast in personality that plays right into the President’s hands? In the year 2024, a mistake could cost them. When voters are presented with an “angel vs. villain” choice, voter turnout usually goes up, with high turnout going to the Democrats.

Biden has made a career out of being underestimated. As the State of the Union was delivered, one loud statement was made: Underestimate me at your own peril.

The president tends to make more errors when tired, and the focus is trying to strike a balance in his schedule.

It also underscored the importance of a State of the Union address advisers viewed as Biden at his best, from cadence and delivery to his off-script sparring with Republicans in the House chamber. The speech was broadcasted in front of millions of viewers to lay out for the country the scale of his accomplishments.

It also allowed him to see why his age should be viewed as a benefit to his efforts to lead the country down that path.

A small group of Democratic officials watched as the effect was immediate. More than a dozen of acknowledged after the fact it was a night that either put to rest or went a long way in assuaging their lingering concerns about the party’s leader.

One of the Democrats said that Biden used the phrase “finish the job” roughly a dozen times.

Advisers say Biden would not start campaigning daily just as Obama did in 2011, but that they would use low impact ways to keep him in the public eye. To some extent it would track and build on the oft-criticized formula deployed in the lead up to the midterms, where Biden eschewed a road warrior, rally heavy strategy and tailored and targeted events – and smaller crowds – instead.

“Funny that we didn’t hear much from the critics about that strategy after November 8,” one adviser said sarcastically of the Democrats’ precedent-busting performance on Election Day last year.

Joe Biden at the White House: What he wants to say about the future of the economy and the world, and what he hopes to say

He has been doing a lot of newsmaking in and around Washington and they are hoping that this will be the most extensive digital effort of a presidential campaign ever.

Top surrogates deployed at a regular clip would include a roster populated by a younger generation of politicians, people familiar with the matter say, even as one pointed out that given Biden’s age, that’s to some degree an inevitability.

“It’s part of who he is – as much a part as his record of legislative accomplishments in the last two years, as much a part as his empathy and his connection with people,” said a senior Biden adviser.

The adviser went on to spell out a theory of the case Biden’s team believes will outweigh any concerns, no matter how persistent they appear in public polling.

“At the end of the day, people are going to say, ‘Who’s on my side?’” the adviser said. “‘Who’s fighting for me? Who is making a difference in my life?

The White House infrastructure expert made the case to the Democratic mayors at the meeting that he joined at a hotel a few blocks from the White House.

I waited for Joe Biden to speak on a Friday night, just before the world shut down. The next morning I watched Bernie Sanders rally a fairly young, largely Latino crowd in a packed Las Vegas high school cafeteria. The Biden event, held when it looked as if he would not win the nomination, was smaller and more subdued. Some Biden backers on the other side of the rope talked about how stressed they would be to be president at their age. As I remember it, one of them said, “But he feels he has to do it.”

Biden and the White House: Are the Dems concerned about a young man or a septuagenarian running mate?

“But,” Landrieu said, as he started to tick through stats around Covid-19 shots, jobs created, unemployment rates, “there are a whole lot more important numbers out there.”

Still, voters bring Biden’s age up constantly in focus groups. One person who observed multiple focus group sessions last year said that the worddementia comes up all the time and that he must be ineffective or puppeteered.

More than a dozen Democratic operatives and officials told CNN they’re worried that Donald Trump – himself a septuagenarian who is facing calls for new leadership from younger politicians in his party – or another much younger Republican who may emerge as the nominee could make a show of seeming more energetic just by keeping a pace of two or three events each day. Some Democrats are questioning the president’s ability to keep up an active travel schedule.

One of the most persuasive ways of dealing with this dilemma is to focus attention on the issue of succession, and highlight how strong the Democratic bench is. Franklin D. Roosevelt was Mr. Biden’s running mate in 1944. He expressed a preference for certain candidates but turned the choice of his running mate over to the delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

And while top White House aides bristle at any suggestion that the president’s age is a liability, others in the building quietly worry that this may be actively underplaying underplaying the concerns that they’re hearing from their own friends and family members.

Other Democratic operatives preparing for a campaign worry about letting suspicions fester, comparing them to the conspiracies about hidden conditions that trailed Hillary Clinton throughout 2016.

The president’s opponents are talking about it. The right-wing media coverage of the classified documents in Biden’s former office made him out to be either senile or a conspiracy theorist because he hadn’t remembered what happened to the documents.

“They attacked him over age before he beat them in 2020. The White House said he was attacked as he built the best legislative record in modern history. They did it before he beat them. I am not sure if they are achieving anything. The trend is not good for them. Maybe they forgot?”

Advisers to Biden say that most of the people who make those types of comments are partisan Republicans and that this is just another instance of hyperpolarization in politics. Outside experts who assessed Biden have stated that he has no physical or mental competence issues.

The president undergoes physical therapy to regain more flexibility because he has significant spinal arthritis, mild pain in his feet, and a nerve palsy in his feet, said Dr. O’Connor.

There are days when his energy levels can appear low at public events. They don’t support another Biden candidacy if he doesn’t think he can do it.

It seems as if those words and an overall emphasis on Biden is an embodiment of reassuring routine and normalcy, which is how aides are starting to look ahead.

In March 2020, when Biden was endorsed by Harris, Booker and others, he described himself as a bridge to the next generation.

Many at the time took that to mean a four-year bridge, an implicit one-term promise that acknowledged his age. Advisers pointed out that he had previously rejected a one-term pledge.

Biden advisers argue that the president’s age could allow the democrats to hold onto some voters who want the party to stay true to it’s roots.

A lot of people who have spent time with Biden have told CNN about how thorough he is in his meetings and how much he demands from them.

Ted Kaufman, one of Biden’s closest friends and advisers, told CNN last year that there is a confidence that comes from knowing what you are doing.

How did Biden get his name on the teleprompter during his first meeting with the president of the United States of America (USA)?

He often gets stuck on, or mispronounces, names on his teleprompter, but that’s far more connected to a convergence of wanting to get the name correct while not encountering a block tied to the childhood stutter he worked intensively and successfully to overcome, but still surfaces in certain moments.

They say he’s the one constantly adding to his schedule, pushing for photo lines with local politicians and extra time to greet crowds after his events, or making meetings run over by peppering policy aides with questions.

“The energy is higher now than maybe when I first met him, and I really believe that that is inspired by the work,” said Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester who has known and worked with Biden much of her life.

There is perhaps no better window into the public perception versus private reality advisers try to convey than a 15-hour stretch in Bali, Indonesia, at the Group of 20 meeting last November.

Biden was on a busy trip that included his first face-to-face meeting with China’s leader, but he chose not to go to the dinner. There were whispers that Biden was too tired to keep going.

He was sitting across from Jake Sullivan and Antony Blinken, trying to figure out what to do about the crisis.

Biden, wearing khakis and a gray T-shirt from a Delaware- based tractor and garden supply center, was on the phone with the Polish president over a missile that had landed in Polish territory and killed two people.

There were calls with the NATO secretary general. The emergency call was brought to the attention of aides. Biden said that was not enough.

After Biden walked the leaders to the Grand Hyatt, it was learned that the missile most likely wasn’t from Russia. Dramatic Escalation fears subsided in a flash. Thirty minutes later, Biden was walking through mangrove trees telling French President Emmanuel Macron and other leaders stories from his Senate days.

They quickly shoot down what they perceive as insinuations, such as when reporters ask why the president has a light public schedule, which has been standard practice for multiple presidents, including Obama. They insist that his midterm travel schedule proves how robust a presence he can be on the road, even though Biden rarely appeared at more than a few events each week through the fall.

Aides laugh at how often his reaction to seeing news mentions of his age is to do a little jog in or out of his next public event. Friends say he’s taken to making sarcastic references to his age, even as he speaks proudly about all he’s been able to accomplish.

Or there was his move three weeks ago in the State Dining Room, when he pretended to wobble as he got back up from taking a knee for a photo with the NBA champion Golden State Warriors, taking a moment to make fun of the crowd’s shock.

“I wanted to get up there and actually give him an arm and help him up, but I didn’t know if I’d get in trouble for that, so I just kinda stood back,” star forward Draymond Green told CNN afterward. “To see him in that physical condition at his age, to get up and down like that, was absolutely incredible.”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/16/politics/joe-biden-age-question/index.html

Five Things to Know About Nikki Haley: What Happens When Mayor Pureval Visited the Capitol with a Biden Interjection

The mayor of Cincinnati, who just turned 40 in September, says a visit from the president last month gave him the impression that Biden has more left in the tank.

Pureval saw a man who laughed hard when the mayor deliberately used a famous Biden interjection – one that contains a four-letter word that starts with F – to describe what a big deal the bipartisan infrastructure money was in helping rebuild the local Brent Spence Bridge.

There were the fist bumps with the crowd at the barbecue spot in town they went to afterward. There was the way the president immediately flashed the fraternity hand sign when a young black man mentioned that he was a member of Phi Beta Sigma.

When you were with him, I didn’t pay much attention to age. Pureval said that the president gave the largest grant in the nation’s history to the bridge.

Nikki Haley. The former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador under Mr. Trump, Ms. Haley has called for “generational change” in the party after three disappointing election cycles for Republicans. But in early surveys, she is polling in single digits. There are five things to know about Haley.

Mike Pompeo is the Secretary of State. Mr. Pompeo has an imposing résumé: congressman, C.I.A. director, secretary of state. He was able to tour and read out a message from the president. The Kansas City Star said the book was similar to a guy at a bar trying to show his strength. Mr. Pompeo says he’s going to make a decision in the next few months.

Other Republicans. Several people, including the senator from South Carolina, a former governor from Maryland and the governor of New Hampshire, are considering running for president in 2024. The field is rounded out by Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, and Liz Cheney, who lost her House seat after helping lead the Capitol riot inquiry.

What have we learned in the first 100 years of the Trump presidency? Observations from inside the era of the medical doctor’s memo

The doctor’s memo was released to the public before the press secretary spoke about the president saying “watch me.” He keeps up with a long schedule, and if you watch him, you will see that.

You could see the first few days of the first Trump White House through this lens, if Donald Trump wins a second term. Insider found that over a quarter of the Congress was over 70 last year. The Republican Senator from Iowa won re-election at the age of 89. Two of the most powerful and defining congressional leaders of most of our lives — Mitch McConnell and Ms. Pelosi — are in their 80s, and until the recent hockey line change in House leadership, much of the Democratic congressional leadership was over 70. The treasury secretary is older than 76. Two Supreme Court justices are in their 70s; in the past decade, death changed the ideological balance of the court.