Ron DeSantis suggests Joe Biden, 80, and Donald Trump, 77, are BOTH too old to become
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis played his obvious ‘Trump’ card against his main rival Monday by suggesting the frontrunners for both the Democratic and Republican nominations are too old to become president.
DeSantis, 44, said voters concerns about Donald Trump, 77, and Joe Biden, 80, ages are ‘absolutely a legitimate concern.’
The governor continues to badly trail Trump in the Republican primary race for the right to challenge Biden, the nation’s oldest-ever president in 2024.
‘The presidency is not a job for someone that’s 80 years old,’ DeSantis said Tuesday. ‘And there’s nothing, you know, wrong with being 80. Obviously I’m the governor of Florida. I know a lot of people who are elderly. They’re great people.’
‘But you’re talking about a job where you need to give it 100 percent. We need an energetic president.’
DeSantis believes he could use his age against Biden were he to become the Republican nominee and would be the third youngest president ever elected – behind Teddy Roosevelt and JFK – if he were to win the nomination and 2024 election.
Florida Governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis said Tuesday that he backs age limits for Congressional lawmakers and said both Donald Trump and Joe Biden’s ages are ‘absolutely a legitimate concern’
‘I think Americans – if Biden’s the Democrat nominee, I’m the Republican nominee – I think there’s going to be a lot of Americans that are going to want to see a generational passing of the torch,’ he said.
He also told CBS News he thinks the nation’s Founding Fathers ‘probably would’ve put an age limit on some of these offices’ if they had a second go at writing the Constitution.
CBS News cited its own poll released Sunday saying over 53 percent of Americans believe the presidency is too demanding for someone over 75, with 78 percent concerned with their ability to perform the job.
DeSantis also told Norah O’Donnell that he would send US troops to the shared border with Mexico and said that he wanted to prevent a war with China.
Trump was the nation’s oldest president when he first took office at 70, with only Biden surpassing him at 78 in 2022.
While the Florida Republican – who cruised to re-election last year – has seen positive polling numbers in a head-to-head against Biden, he still has a lot to do to beat his predecessor.
Trump remains miles ahead of his Republican counterparts, a new national poll shows – despite four arrests, a historic mugshot, and not attending this week’s GOP debate where many of his rivals had a strong showing.
Organized by InsiderAdvantage, the survey of likely Republican voters showed the former president, despite his controversies, has a full 27 percent lead over his closest second in DeSantis, and 34 percent over South Carolina’s Nikki Haley.
Next was the man many thought won the noticeably Trump-less debate, biotech millionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, who recently beat out DeSantis as the perceived winner in a poll organized by DailyMail.com. Here, he only scored fourth, with 7 percent.
Trump (pictured right) was the nation’s oldest president when he first took office at 70, with only Biden (pictured left) surpassing him at 78 in 2022
DeSantis (pictured with wife Casey) believes he could use his age against Biden were he to become the Republican nominee
Organized by InsiderAdvantage , the survey of likely Republican voters showed the former president, despite his controversies, has a double digit-lead over the rest of the GOP
A new CNN poll shows Biden trailing Trump, Pence, Scott, Ramaswamy, Christie, and Haley, and tied with DeSantis
Conducted after the debate, it also indicated a trend of rising support for both polls’ runner up in DeSantis, as well as fellow debate standout Haley. That said, both remain well behind the embattled ex-head of state.
However, recent polling shows DeSantis in a 47-47 tie with the current president.
Biden narrowly trails Trump, the GOP frontrunner, 47 to 46 in a new CNN / SSRS poll. That is in keeping with polling averages like one by RealClearPolitics, which has Biden leading Trump by 1 percentage point.
Voters in those polls continued to register deep concerns about Biden and his age in particular.
It shows 73 per cent seriously concerned about his mental competence and 76 per cent concerned about his ability to serve out his four-year term if reelected.
Two-thirds of Democrats, or 67 per cent, say the party should nominate someone besides Biden, up from 54 per cent in March.
Both Biden and Trump are at 35 per cent favorability.
The poll comes as Biden prepares to fly to India for a meeting of world leaders at the G20 summit.