Bernie Sanders says Joe Biden’s age will be an issue in 2024

President Joe Biden’s age has been one of the main concerns of his political opponents during his time in office and one of his former rivals has agreed that it could be an issue. 

When Biden announced his intention to run for a second term in office he did so with the knowledge that he would be eighty-six years old when his time in office came to an end. 

Biden is already the oldest serving president and his political adversaries have squared in on his older age as a vector of attack against the commander-in-chief’s performance. 

There have been a number of incidents Republicans have clung to as proof that Biden is far too old to be serving in office and Bernie Sanders has agreed that it's a problem. 

"When people look at a candidate, whether it's Joe Biden, or Trump, or Bernie Sanders, or anybody else, they have to evaluate a whole lot of factors," Sanders explained during an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press. 

"I met with the president five or six weeks ago, we had a great discussion, he seemed fine to me,” Sanders said in reference to Biden’s age. “But I think at the end of the day, what we have got to ask ourselves is what do people stand for?” Sanders questioned. 

The independent senator from Vermont and former contender for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination went on to explain that voters will have to choose the policies that they align with when it comes time to cast a ballot in 2024. 

“Do you believe that women have the right to control their own bodies?” Sanders asked in a rhetorical manner. “Well, the president has been strong on that. Do you think that climate change is real? Or do you agree with the Republicans that it's a non-issue?”

The point of Sanders’ questioning was to show that there are a number of key issues that will affect how people vote in the upcoming presidential election that age will not be as important to most Americans as the real issues facing the future of the country. 

“Age is an issue,” Sanders told Meet the Press presenter Chuck Tood, "but there are a lot of broader issues than just that." However, not all Americans seem to agree with Bernie Sanders’ assessment of how important Biden’s age will be in the next election. 

New polling by The Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that a majority of the country believes Biden is too old to be an effective president for another four years in office. 

Of those polled, 77% of adults said Biden was too old for a second term in office, and it wasn’t just Republicans who said the president couldn’t be effective for four more years. 

A majority of Democrats (69%) across all age cohorts responded that Biden was too old for a second term with 89% of Republicans saying the same, so the president’s age is a big issue for most American voters. 

The interesting thing in all of the discussions about Biden’s age is that his likely Republican rival is no spring chicken himself. Trump will be 78 years old if he’s reelected to office and he would end his time in the White House at 82. 

Biden is already the oldest serving president in U.S. history and his closest predecessor was John Adams, who served in office at the ripe old age of 61 years old according to a report from The Hill. 

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So it looks as if the battle for 2024 will result in the American Republic seeing its oldest president regardless of who wins, and most voters are just as unenthusiastic about Trump’s old age as they are about Bidens. 

The same poll asking about Biden’s age and effectiveness in a second term found that 51% of adults think Trump is too old for a second term with 71% of Democrats saying so and only 28% of Republicans agreeing, so it seems GOP voters are a little less worried. 

“What’s clear from the poll is that Americans are saying out with the old and in with the young, or at least younger,” Calvin Woodward and Emily Swanson of The Associated Press wrote. Unfortunately, that’s likely the exact opposite of what we'll get in 2024.