Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has been hit by President Donald Trump’s attacks on his mental capacities.
In recent months, 74-year-old Trump and his campaign have been clinging to verbal gaffs that Biden has made and repeatedly, without proof, sought to portray the president’s 77-year-old rival as mentally incompetent, referring to him perhaps as “Sleepy Joe.”
In an interview with Fox News anchor Chris Wallace last month, Trump denied the opportunity to label Biden as senile, but said he was “mentally shot.”
Biden was pressured about Trump’s attacks on his mental fitness by ABC News anchor David Muir in his first joint sit-down interview running mate, senior Kamala Harris, California.
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The former vice president insisted that despite his age, he could “absolutely” serve two terms as president. If elected, Biden would be 78 on Inauguration Day in January 2021 and the oldest ever resident of the White House.
Olivier Douliery / AFP via Getty Images
“[Trump’s] campaign has called you ‘reduced’. And I’m envious of how you would react to that, “Muir Biden asked.
“Watch me. Mr. President, watch me. Look at both of us,” Biden said, referring to Harris, 55. “Look at both of us, what we say, what we do, what we control, what we know, what kind of the form in which we are. “
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Biden acknowledged that it was “legitimate” to ask anyone over the age of 70 if they were fit to run the country. “The only thing I can say to the American people, it’s a legitimate question to ask everyone. Watch me,” he added.
Biden later said that when he called himself a transition candidate, he did not mean a one-time president. “We have spent almost no time building the bank in the Democratic Party,” Biden Muir said.
He said he wanted to make sure that when the elections are over, “we have a new First Chamber, we won state houses back, we are in a position where we are moving to a period to bring people to the visibility that ‘. they need to be able to lead nationally. “
Asked if that meant giving him the opportunity to serve eight years as president, Biden replied: “Absolutely.”
Biden accepted the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party with a 24-minute speech during the first ever virtual Democratic National Convention.
Fox News’s Chris Wallace praised Biden’s speech: “I thought it was a hugely effective speech. Remember, Donald Trump talked for months about Joe Biden as a mental shot … I thought he blew a hole, a big hole in it. the characterization. ” pic.twitter.com/sChU4jBzw2
– Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) 21 August 2020
Many praised the address, including Wallace on Fox News, who said he thought it was “enormously effective.”
“Remember, Donald Trump has been talking for months about Joe Biden as a mental shooter,” Wallace said. “I thought he blew a hole, a big hole in the characterization.”
Meanwhile, Trump has stumbled through some of his own late-night interviews. He recently bragged about passing a cognitive test designed to mark signs of dementia in older people and insists Biden could not pass it.
The first joint sit-down interview of Biden and Harris will air on ABC on Sunday at 8 p.m.
