Nearly 90 percent of Americans now believe that President Joe Biden is simply too old to serve another term in office, an ABC News/Ipsos poll found on Sunday. This unprecedented loss of public confidence comes just after a damning special counsel report highlighted the 81-year-old executive’s “significantly limited” memory, setting off a flurry of deflections and gaffes from the White House.
According to the poll’s respondents, a staggering 86 percent of voters believe that Biden should not seek a second term given his age. This result includes 73 percent of Democrats and 91 percent of Independents. As the poll notes, the number of voters concerned about Biden’s advanced age has increased dramatically in just a few short months, making a double-digit jump from the 74 percent found in a Washington Post poll in September. This number in turn marked a six-point increase from an even older poll in May of last year.
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A full breakdown of the poll, which surveyed 528 adults between Friday and Saturday, reveals that the 86 percent figure includes 59 percent who believe that both Biden and former President Donald Trump, 77, are too old for the presidency, along with 27 percent who think this only of Biden. Just 3 percent of poll takers said Trump alone is too old for office.
Only 11 percent overall said that age should not disqualify either candidate.
The poll came directly on the heels of Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report on Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents following his time as vice president. As Valuetainment previously reported, Hur determined that while Biden did “willfully retain and disclose” sensitive information, “no criminal charges were warranted” given the difficulty of prosecuting him. According to the report, Hur’s office decided that “at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
Hur also cited multiple examples of Biden’s “painfully slow” efforts to recall basic details during interviews, including incidents in which he forgot when he had served as vice president, could not remember when his son Beau had died, and became confused about his stances on foreign policy issues.
Related: Kamala Harris Says She is “Ready to Serve” in Place of Biden
In response to the report—which White House lawyers denounced as “shoddy work” that “misstated the facts”—Biden called an impromptu press conference to reassure the country of cognitive capabilities. During that conference, Biden repeatedly yelled at reporters, forgot details from the very report he was addressing, and mixed up the presidents of Egypt and Gaza. He ended by declaring himself “the most qualified person in the United States to be president.”
Biden says, on the Israel vs. Hamas war: "Initially, the president of Mexico Sisis did not want to open up the gate to allow humanitarian material to get in."
The Rafah Gate is the border of Gaza & Egypt, not Gaza & Mexico. Sisi is the President of Egypt, not President of Mexico pic.twitter.com/ZN8caYLnvM
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 9, 2024
Immediately after the special counsel report was released, it was confirmed that Biden would not be sitting for a traditional pre-Super Bowl interview for the second year in a row. Instead, the White House X account posted a short video of the president attacking food companies for contributing to “shrinkflation.” Biden has notably not attended a long-form interview since October 15.
“It’s Super Bowl Sunday, and if you’re anything like me, you like to be surrounded by a snack or two while watching the big game,” Biden remarked in the video. “You know, when buying snacks for the game, you might have noticed one thing: sports drinks bottles are smaller, [a] bag of chips has fewer chips, but they’re still charging just as much.”
He went on to express particular frustration at the diminishing size of ice cream cartons and demanded that “businesses do the right thing now.”
While you were Super Bowl shopping, did you notice smaller-than-usual products where the price stays the same?
Folks are calling it Shrinkflation and it means companies are giving you less for every dollar you spend.
I’m calling on the big consumer brands to put a stop to it. pic.twitter.com/wL1NsEh78F
— President Biden (@POTUS) February 11, 2024
Coupled with the special counsel’s findings, the video drew widespread mockery given the administration’s abysmal record on inflation, which surged to a 40-year high in June 2022 and remains well above the Federal Reserve’s target goal.
Despite the president’s accusations against snack food companies, many have laid the blame for the rising cost of living on “Bidenomics,” not “shrinkflation.”
Connor Walcott is a staff writer for Valuetainment.com. Follow Connor on X and look for him on VT’s “The Unusual Suspects.”
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