He really is “Sleepy Joe.”
President Biden, in private, “would occasionally admit that he felt tired,” during his first two years as commander in chief, according to a forthcoming book.
The 80-year-old president’s “advanced years” have been a “hindrance,” stripping him of his vigor and leaving him unable to quickly recall peoples names, Franklin Foer writes in “The Last Politician,” according to an excerpt published by The Guardian Tuesday.
“It was striking that he took so few morning meetings or presided over so few public events before 10 a.m.,” Foer says in the book due out on Sept. 5.
“His public persona reflected physical decline and time’s dulling of mental faculties that no pill or exercise regime can resist.
“In private, he would occasionally admit that he felt tired,” the bombshell book claims.
Biden, the oldest president in US history, has been plagued by questions related to his mental acuity amid a re-election campaign that, if successful, will entrench him in the Oval Office until he is 86.
A whopping 77% of Americans feel that Biden is too old to effectively govern if he wins a second term in office, according to an Associated Press-NORC poll released Monday.
Concerns about the octogenarian president’s age cut across party lines, with 89% of Republicans troubled by it and 69% of Democrats worried it will affect his presidency as well.
In public, Biden has acknowledged that questions about his age are a “legitimate concern” for voters.
However, in private, the oldest-ever commander in chief has “vented to allies” about how much the topic is discussed in the media, according to Politico.
“You think I don’t know how f—ing old I am?” an exasperated Biden ranted to one of his acquaintances last year, according to the outlet.
Several of the president’s verbal and physical missteps have helped sustain age-related questions.
In one ghastly incident, Biden tried to recognize Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.) during a September 2022 event — forgetting she had died in a car accident weeks earlier.
More recently, the president fell on stage after congratulating graduating cadets at the Air Force Academy in Colorado in June, and later in the evening, he “bumped his head on the doorframe” of his Marine One helicopter upon arrival at the White House, according to a pool report.
Foer argues that some of the president’s gaffes are not the result of his advanced age, but because of “indiscipline and indecision” seen throughout his nearly 50-year-long career as a politician.
The former New Republic editor also praises Biden’s “wartime leadership” after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, writing that the president “drew on his weathered instincts and his robust self-confidence.”
“The advantages of having an older president were on display. He wasn’t just a leader of the coalition, he was the West’s father figure, whom foreign leaders could call for advice and look to for assurance.
“It was his calming presence and his strategic clarity that helped lead the alliance to such an aggressive stance, which stymied authoritarianism on its front lines.
“He was a man for his age,” Foer writes.