President Joe Biden’s close advisers are worried about his age and “diminished” energy as the president seeks reelection and faces the grind of a 2024 presidential campaign, a report detailed Friday.
Recent polling shows that 67 percent of voters believe Biden is too old to be president and 56 percent have doubts about his mental fitness.
Those doubts appear to have crept into the White House. The president’s advisers say Biden, who is 80 and would be 86 by the end of a second term, is mentally sharp but worry “his age has diminished his energy” needed for a rigorous campaign, according to Axios.
“Many White House officials say they’re amazed at Biden’s stamina — often adding the caveat: ‘for his age,’” the report said before revealing that Biden does not like to hold public or private events outside the hours of 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
“Some White House officials say it’s difficult to schedule public or private events with the president in the morning, in the evening, or on weekends: The vast majority of Biden’s public events happen on weekdays, between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m,” according to Axios.
The report is confirmed by former White House press secretary Jen Psaki, who said on MSNBC that Biden does not conduct business before 9 AM.
“President Biden does nothing at 9 a.m.,” she said. “He is a night owl.”
Biden’s staffers have tried to work around his short battery life in 2023 by scheduling a small number of public events outside the times of 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., the report detailed, saying that since the beginning of this year, there have been very few events outside of that time frame:
- Only four public events before 10 a.m.
- Just a dozen public events after 6 p.m. — mostly dinners and receptions with foreign leaders or fundraisers.
- 12 full weekends with no public events.
The report about Biden’s short working hours comes amid a slew of negative polling in April for the president.
Nearly three-quarters of United States adult residents believe Biden’s America is “out of control.” A majority of Americans believe the nation is heading on the wrong track. Seventy percent of Americans feel financially stressed in Biden’s America. Fewer than a quarter of Democrats feel excited about Biden’s 2024 campaign for reelection. Only 39 percent of Americans approve of Biden, down three points since March.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
