Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton thinks President Joe Biden’s age is fair game for voters to consider.
“His age is an issue and people have every right to consider it,” Clinton said during a wide-ranging interview with the Financial Times at the FT Weekend festival Saturday in Washington, D.C.
Clinton had been asked about Biden, 80, falling down stairs, and she said, “it’s a concern for anyone and we’ve had presidents who’ve fallen before who are a lot younger, and people didn’t go into heart palpitations.”
An ABC News/Washington Post poll released earlier this month found 68% of Americans believe Biden is too old to serve another term. When asked about former President Donald Trump, 76, the poll found 44% said he was too older to serve another term.
Biden became the oldest president in U.S. history when he took office in 2021 at age 78, breaking the record previously set by Ronald Reagan, who was 77 years old when he left office in 1989. Trump was 74 when he left office in 2021.
Biden has deflected comments about his age by bringing up his experience and wisdom. In an interview with MSNBC earlier this month, he said he knows “more than the vast majority of people” and “I’m more experienced than anybody that’s ever run for the office.”
Clinton also defended Biden during the interview, saying he has a good record that people couldn’t have predicted three years ago.
“He doesn’t get the credit yet that he deserves for what is happening out in the country, in terms of jobs and growth and planning for the future, with chips and other stuff,” she said. “I think he can be reelected, and that’s what we should all hope for.”
Clinton quoted Biden who’s said don’t judge him by the Almighty, but against the alternative, and she criticized Trump, saying “he’s only gotten worse.”
“Look, if Trump wins — which I do not believe will happen, let me just quickly say that — if in some scenario that were to happen, it would be the end of democracy in the United States. It would be the end of Ukraine, and it would become — he will pull us out of NATO if he wins again,” she said. “The list of potential disastrous outcomes is longer than I have time to go over with you, but it’s why we can’t permit it to happen.”
Clinton said she believes Russia’s inability to defeat Ukraine has set back Chinese intentions to invade Taiwan. Trump has claimed that if he were still president, Russia wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine. Clinton had a different opinion, claiming Trump would have pulled the U.S. out of NATO and Putin’s invasion “would have literally been a cakewalk for him.”
“(Putin) found a willing partner in Trump, who was very susceptible to the idea that a strongman, a kind of tough man, the kind that Trump admires and wants to be,” she said.