Washington Post says Biden has 'real issue' with age: 'Public has a right to know'
President Biden will be 82 years old by the time of the 2024 election
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The Washington Post Editorial Board wrote Friday that President Biden has a "real issue" with age and argued that the public has a right to know about his health and "what he is doing to maintain it."
"Mr. Biden’s age is not inevitably the decisive issue, but it is a real one, and he will have to address it, forthrightly, whether the choice in 2024 is between him and Mr. Trump or another Republican. The public has a right to know details about his health, physical and mental, and about what he is doing to maintain it. The president also has an obligation to interact with the public, especially with reporters, regularly, and in settings that are not tightly controlled by the White House staff," the editorial board wrote.
Biden, who officially announced his re-election campaign in April, will be 82 years old in November 2024.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The editorial board added that while his physicians have declared him to be healthy, Social Security Administration data "indicates the average person his age can expect to live an additional 8.5 years."
President Joe Biden leaves following services at St. Edmond Catholic Church in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, on April 15, 2023. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
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"This points to another reality: the risk, in a second term, of serious health challenges or even invocation of the 25th Amendment, which deals with presidential disability," the editors said.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The president addressed concerns about his age during a press conference in April and said he couldn't even say the number.
"With regard to age, I can't even say – I guess, how old I am – I can't even say the number. It doesn't register with me," Biden said, adding that Americans will be able to determine whether he has it or he doesn't.
"I took a hard look at it before I decided to run, and I feel good and excited about the prospects," he continued.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}President Biden talks with reporters on the South Lawn of the White House, March 31, 2023, before boarding Marine One. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
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The Washington Post said age was a concern for former President Donald Trump as well, but that the concerns were "overshadowed by his defects of character, temperament and extremism."
"In an ideal world, the U.S. political system would enable a generational update among our presidential candidates. In the real world, it looks as if voters in 2024 will have to weigh Mr. Biden’s advanced age more or less as he proposes — not compared with the alternatives they wish they had but compared with the ones they do," the editors wrote.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally on April 27, 2023, in Manchester, New Hampshire. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Some of Biden's advisers see the president's age as a potential issue as well, Axios reported in April.
Several of them have reportedly said his age has "diminished his energy," and "limited his schedule."
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Fox News Digital's Gabriel Hays contributed to this report.