A growing number of Americans believe that there should be an age limit imposed on elected lawmakers, and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) just exemplified exactly why that is the case. The 82-year-old Pelosi tried to argue that there was no “problem” with the 80-year-old President Joe Biden seeking a second term in office since he is “younger” than she is, the News Outlet reported.
Needless to say, the apparent “logic” of Pelosi’s assessment of Biden’s age did not go over particularly well on social media.
Pelosi says Biden’s age not a “problem”
Representative Pelosi joined The Atlantic’s Evan Smith for a conversation on Monday about saving “democracy” for the future, and at one point in the discussion sought to praise President Biden’s leadership with a joke about their respective ages with regard to his likely bid to seek re-election.
“He is absolutely a magnificent leader,” Pelosi said of Biden. “He is, um — younger than I am, so — so I don’t know what the problem is.”
“But in any event,” she added after the laughter from the audience died down, “I hope that he will soon make some announcement.”
Nancy Pelosi on Biden: "He is absolutely a magnificent leader. He is younger than I am, so I don't know what the problem is." pic.twitter.com/2okqV4EYRx
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) March 13, 2023
Majority agree there should be age limits for politicians
The News Outlet noted that countless commenters on the above video clip were quick to reject Pelosi’s “logic” by noting how old she was and that it really wasn’t saying much given that Biden was almost as old as she is.
Many noted that Pelosi pointing out that Biden is two years her junior is not exactly a ringing endorsement for him to serve another term when most Americans already believe that both individuals are far too old to hold public office.
Indeed, a CBS News poll in Sept. 2022 found that 73 percent of all Americans, regardless of their own age or partisan affiliation, agreed that there should be age limits imposed on elected politicians, with a plurality of 40 percent settling on age 70 as the maximum limit for politicians to serve.
Majority say Biden not mentally fit for office
However, age alone is not the main problem that most Americans have with President Biden, but rather that in conjunction with his increasingly apparent decline in mental health and cognitive capabilities — with the same being said for Representative Pelosi as well.
That was duly noted by many of the commenters in the replies to the above video, according to the News Outlet.
To that point, the New York Post reported last month on a new poll from Harvard CAPS/Harris that found that 57 percent of all Americans — including 85 percent of Republicans and 66 percent of independents — had doubts about Biden’s mental fitness to continue serving as president.
In the end, the pollsters also found that 63 percent of registered voters believed that Biden shouldn’t run for a second term — after which he would be 86, if re-elected — and cited as reasons being his advanced age, him being a “bad president,” and the ever-present yearning for “change” — something that certainly won’t come with an octogenarian in the White House.
