One of the biggest lines of attack that any Republican Party presidential candidate has against President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic Party’s nominee for president in 2024, is that Biden is cognitively impaired. At age 81, Biden has spent the last three years of his first term in office stumbling, mumbling, and jumbling his public appearances. 

The man is, frankly, an embarrassment for this country each time he goes before cameras. Since former President Donald J. Trump is at present on track to become the GOP nominee, he has wasted no time attacking Biden for his apparent age-related cognitive impairment.

Yet, this is a tricky proposition for Trump, who is himself merely four years younger than Biden, and also has had to endure tough questions related to his mental acuity. The Republicans should have a slam dunk election over sclerotic Joe Biden in 2024. 

It should be extremely easy for the Republicans to overcome the Biden Campaign, simply by focusing their attacks on Biden’s advanced age and the awful economic conditions in the United States presently. With the septuagenarian Trump as the GOP nominee, though, that prospect becomes daunting.

Donald Trump is Also Prone to Serious Misstatements 

The reason is because the forty-fifth president, like his successor, is prone to verbal gaffes.

He often confuses people’s names, gets his references wrong, and mistakes key dates. Ultimately, if you were to compare Trump and Biden, one would find that the electorate generally sees Biden as the more senile of the two men. 

What’s more, while president, Trump was subjected to the same criticisms and concerns about his own mental acumen that President Joe Biden is today being subjected to. Trump even took a cognitive test which became the source of a great many internet memes. 

And to be sure, it seems that the forty-sixth president’s cognitive decline is far greater than the forty-fifth president’s decline. 

Nevertheless, Trump is only a few years younger than Biden and, unlike someone much younger, also has a (growing) repertoire of mistakes in public that could be perceived as signs of cognitive decline. More interestingly, Trump became defensive about questions of Biden possibly being too old. He corrected a reporter who asked if Trump thought Biden was too old by insisting that the reporter not look at age but instead at mental acuity. 

Obviously, Trump is self-aware enough to know that his four-year age difference from Biden makes calls to fixate on Biden’s age as a reason for not reelecting him dangerous to Trump. Trump should be careful what he asks for, though. His mental acuity in recent days isn’t looking very good.

Late last year, the former president was giving a speech to his followers in which he was rightly lambasting President Biden’s awful foreign policy. The only problem was that Trump’s speech seemed somewhat labored and he appeared to be slightly confused. He made a series of verbal gaffes that, had Biden made them, the Republicans would have been understandably using as yet another example of the forty-sixth president’s age-related cognitive decline. 

“We have a man who is totally corrupt and the worst president in the history of our country, who is cognitively impaired, in no condition to lead, and is now in charge of dealing with Russia and possible nuclear war,” Trump correctly assessed. But then things went off the rails a bit for the former president. “Just think of it. We could be in World War II very quickly if we’re relying on this man, and far more devastating than any war.”

Trump made these comments during a speech in which he not only mistook the possibility of a nuclear third world war with Russia over Ukraine with the Second World War, but he also repeatedly confused former President Barack Obama with Trump’s likely presidential rival, President Joe Biden. Sure, Obama and Biden served together from 2009-2017. And I firmly believe that the forty-fourth president has a dangerous degree of influence over the forty-sixth president. 

But they are, contrary to Trump’s confused remarks, two very different people. 

Is Trump the Best the GOP Can Do? 

Should Trump become the GOP nominee and square off against Biden, the possibility exists that the GOP’s greatest line of attack—perceptions of Joe Biden’s age-related cognitive decline—will be negated by former President Trump, if he starts having repeated public displays where he also is confused and nonsensical. 

Luckily for the Republicans, though, the convoluted remarks by Trump were still more sensible than anything that President Biden has said recently. Of course, age-related cognitive decline, of the kind that Joe Biden—and possibly now Trump—is experiencing can often become exacerbated by stress. And there are few endeavors as stressful as running for the presidency. 

About the Author

Brandon J. Weichert is a former Congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who is a contributor at The Washington Times, as well as at the Asia Times. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower (Republic Book Publishers), Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life (Encounter Books), and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. Weichert occasionally serves as a Subject Matter Expert for various organizations, including the Department of Defense. He can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.

All images are Creative Commons.