FILE – President Ronald Reagan, left, and his Democratic challenger Walter Mondale, shake hands before debating in Kansas City, Mo., Oct. 22, 1984. The age question for presidential candidates is more than four decades old.
FILE – President Ronald Reagan sits in the Oval Office after he delivered his farewell address to the nation Jan. 11, 1989, from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. The age question for presidential candidates is more than four decades old. The age question for presidential candidates is more than four decades old.
Today, Democratic President Joe Biden, 81, is struggling for such a redemptive moment after a disastrous debate performance against Republican former president Donald Trump, 78. Those 90 minutes last week set off alarms among Democrats hoping Biden would keep Trump from returning to the White House — and heightened concern amongof how either elderly man would govern a complex nation of more than 330 million people for four more years.described him as often sharp and focused.
Reagan faced the same questions even before he was elected as the oldest president to that point. In 1980, at 69, he pledged to resign if he sensed serious cognitive decline while in office. Neither Trump nor Biden has made a similar pledge, and their campaigns did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.