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Is President Biden’s advanced age an economic problem? If that prevents him from getting re-elected and opens the door to a Republican Party with a vastly different tax, trade and spending plan, then so be it.
Economic news is going Biden’s way. Stock prices continue to hit record highs, reflecting investors’ optimism about the future. Inflation continues to improve. Economists at Bank of America believe that growth in 2024 could be stronger than expected, which should be bullish for Biden’s re-election chances.
But Biden’s latest charge lies in a federal prosecutor’s report that described the 81-year-old president as an “elderly man with a poor memory.” The report actually exonerated Biden of keeping classified materials in his home after he left office as vice president in 2017. There was some classified information, but Biden may have kept it as an “innocent mistake,” the report said. Unlike former President Donald Trump, who bullied prosecutors in an attempt to obtain classified documents he had exfiltrated and was ultimately charged with obstruction of justice, Biden cooperated fully and sat through a five-hour hearing. endured. The prosecutor recommended no further action.
But he questioned Biden’s mental acuity and hit Biden where it hurt. The report said Biden’s memory is “significantly limited,” including recordings of interviews dating back to 2017, three years before he was elected president. During an interrogation with prosecutors last October, Biden demonstrated “limited accuracy and reproducibility.”
A feisty Biden fired back at a Feb. 8 press conference, but reporters shouted questions at him, essentially asking if he was weak. “He knows what he’s doing,” Biden said. “My memory is fine. Let’s look at what I’ve been doing since I became president. How did that happen? Maybe I forgot what was going on?”
Biden supporters also say special counsel Robert Hur, a Republican appointed by President Donald Trump in 2018 to be a prosecutor at the Justice Department, is trying to undermine Biden’s 2024 presidential candidacy. It is pointed out that there may have been. To Biden’s credit, just as the Trump administration’s Justice Department tried to undermine the 2019 Robert Mueller report on Russian interference in the 2016 election, the There is no evidence that he attempted to thwart, distort or undermine his investigation.
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Nevertheless, the bigger picture for Biden is that he may become the first president in modern times to lose reelection for reasons other than the economic downturn. In most cases, economic conditions will determine whether a president in his first term wins his second term. In the election year of 1980, the recession threatened Jimmy Carter’s re-election, and in 1992, a hangover from the recession caused George H.W. Bush to slump. The coronavirus pandemic affected Trump’s re-election in 2020, but a major factor was the economic downturn.
Modern presidents, including Ronald Reagan in 1984, Bill Clinton in 1996, George W. Bush in 2004, and Barack Obama in 2012, all won reelection during economic booms or recoveries. If current trends continue, Biden should join that group. According to Yahoo Finance’s Bidennomics report card, Mr. Biden’s performance recently rose from a B to a B+, and his biggest assets are jobs and GDP growth, as well as a newly energized stock market.
But as anyone preparing for the 2024 election knows, Biden is not getting any traction with voters, even if the economy is doing well. Consumer confidence has improved sharply in the past two months as voters finally seem to believe that inflation is in permanent decline. But Biden’s approval rating remains at just 39%, near the lowest point of his presidential term. Biden’s approval ratings have declined as inflation has risen and confidence has plummeted, but as the economy recovers, his approval ratings have not recovered commensurately.
Whether it is an easy move or not, Mr. Xu’s fall from grace among the elderly could be a turning point for Mr. Biden. This prompted Mr. Biden to launch his first major effort to publicly quash such criticism, but he was not entirely successful. Biden went on the offensive in front of the cameras at Congress on February 8, but as the old adage goes, when you’re explaining, you’re losing. Oh, and Biden similarly said “Mexico” when he meant to say “Egypt,” as if to emphasize Mr. Xu’s point.
Proving his mental health may now be a higher priority for Mr. Biden than making voters feel good about the economy. Biden could do that. Most voters will not read the Herr report, and many may have never even heard of it. If Biden is as healthy as he claims to be and can show it, Eldergate may blow over.
Mr. Trump, who is likely to become Mr. Biden’s presidential candidate (if both men survive to the end), is also listed. Polls show a majority of voters think each candidate is too old, and Mr. Trump could be on a jury in one or two of his four criminal trials by fall. If this lineup holds, the fall election will pit elderly people with poor memory and elderly people with poor ethics against each other.
Voters know the difference between Biden and Trump. Biden is a champion of clean energy and wants to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy and expand social programs. Trump is a fossil fuel fanatic who will cut green energy subsidies, cut taxes further, deregulate even more than he did in his first term, and escalate the trade war with China.
But the likelihood of either of these current front-runners dropping out of the race is increasing, forcing voters to get used to new faces. Probably they won’t complain.
Rick Newman is Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter @rickjnewman.
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