Assistant House Democrat leader Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC), who also serves as President Joe Biden’s 2024 reelection campaign co-chair, said the president’s age is a “legitimate concern.”
Clyburn reportedly speaks with the president regularly and has been credited for helping Biden win their party’s primary during the 2020 presidential election. His endorsement of Biden in the primary ultimately helped him over the finish line after suffering multiple early-state losses.
However, he has shown concern over Biden’s age going into the next election cycle.
“Joe Biden I’m sure has lost a step,” the 82-year-old South Carolina Democrat said about the 80-year-old president, according to a Vanity Fair article published on Monday.
“It’s a legitimate concern. I don’t hit my 5-iron as far as I used to—but I can still play 36 holes of golf a day. You learn how to make certain adjustments,” Clyburn added. “I think Joe Biden knows how to operate within himself. And I would much rather have an 82-year-old Joe Biden as president than a 42-year-old Donald Trump.”
The comments from the staunch Biden supporter come after a CBS News/YouGov poll at the end of April found 45 percent of Democrats did not want Biden to run again, 86 percent of whom cited his age as the reason.
The 80-year-old president will be 82 at the end of his first term as president and 86 at the end of a second term if he is reelected.
In 1972, when as a 29-year-old local Delaware councilman he ran against incumbent Sen. Cale Boggs (R-DE), a former two-term governor, Biden used his opponent’s age to criticize him on multiple occasions.
The then-councilman used the senator’s age enough times that a reporter eventually labeled the tactic “Dear old Dad.”
Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.
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