Kamala Harris could face Donald Trump in the US election. Now the 78-year-old president has an age problem that could prove to be his undoing. In a political sense, writes the "Frankfurter Rundschau", quoted by BTA.
Much of Donald Trump's campaign for the upcoming US election has been built on verbal attacks on Joe Biden, who is actually only three years older, but whose public appearances in the recent past – and setbacks – provided multiple opportunities for attack. But suddenly Donald Trump became The Old Man.
Kamala Harris launched her election campaign and, although she is not yet the official candidate for the presidency of the Democratic Party, in a very short time she managed to consolidate her position as Biden's successor. And this could now become a problem for Trump.
Donald Trump's age is becoming an issue
"Sleepy Joe”, who leads the most powerful country in the West - there is hardly any other label that characterizes Donald Trump's campaign appearances more than the verbal attacks on his rival from the Democratic Party. Joe Biden was too old, senile, or had health problems. Trump has always sought to emphasize his own physical form and present himself as the more athletic alternative. However, this strategy has ended. And he will no longer be of much use against Harris, 59, in the run up to the US election in the fall. At 78, he is nearly two decades older than the potential Democratic nominee.
The fact that his age may now be a burden is reflected in a new survey of the state of the US election, which questions the age of the candidate as well as the general mood of the US electorate. The poll was conducted by Reuters and Ipsos among 1,241 adults, including 1,018 registered voters. Fifty-three percent of them agree with the statement that Donald Trump is too old to govern.
"After weeks of heightened attention to President Biden's health and age, which ended in his withdrawal from the campaign, the trend has reversed: Former President Donald Trump is now the oldest presidential candidate in history,” summarizes the development of events newspaper “Washington Post“.
Harris vs. Trump in the US election
Donald Trump often looked youthful next to Biden, but now he is the old politician who wants to run for president of the United States at the age of almost 80. So shortly after Biden's withdrawal, Democrats gleefully used Trump's age to poke fun at the Republican. The left-wing campaign group "Occupy Democrats" posted a Facebook photo of Trump after the 2020 election: "My election was stolen," the 78-year-old was quoted as saying. The bodyguard answers him: “That's right, grandpa. Let me take you to the toilet first.“
MSNBC also analyzes the fact that Donald Trump's age could become a much more common theme in the 2024 US election campaign in the coming weeks. To make matters worse, Trump regularly refuses to divulge basic details about his health. Trump is a "78-year-old man with a history of heart disease and obesity" who "did not provide recent blood work or other specific information during the campaign that would have helped experts assess his current health risks,”, it added. "Washington Post".
Trump suddenly got old…
Regardless of whether Kamala Harris ends up becoming the Democratic nominee or whether an alternative is found to succeed Joe Biden, it is clear that Trump will almost certainly have to deal with a younger Democratic nominee. That's why it's not out of the question that Democrats will rearrange the puzzle after months of attacks on Biden's age.
"Democrats will be able to use Harris as an offensive chess piece in favor of women's right to self-determination and reproductive freedom and hope that Trump will err on the side of overreacting so they can accuse him of not he can be controlled because of his age," he told the Guardian. Democratic Party strategist Hank Sheinkopf.
At his very first rally, Harris drew a stark contrast between himself, as a crime-fighting prosecutor, and Trump, as the first president ever to be convicted of a crime.
Now it remains to be seen how the man who promises to make America great again will react.