CNN's Harwood Dismisses Biden's Age: 'Gears of His Mind Are Working'

June 19th, 2022 12:49 PM

On Sunday’s Reliable Sources on CNN, host Brian Stelter assembled a panel of leftist media “reporters” and commentators to whine about how the narrative that President Joe Biden is old and is no longer mentally fit to conduct his presidential duties has spread outside the bounds of conservative media. 

One of Stelter’s panelists, CNN's White House correspondent John Harwood especially took issue with the growing consensus that Biden’s advanced age is starting to become a problem. 

Harwood dodged the lingering question over whether Biden should run for reelection in 2024 and sought to debunk the claims that the President’s age is becoming a liability: “What's true is the presidency is a hugely taxing job. Mentally and physically. And Joe Biden is old. He doesn't talk or walk as smoothly as he once did. That suggests challenges. When you get into your 80s, which he's about to do, the risk of health problems grows with every year.” 

 

 

Continuing to make excuses for Biden’s declining mental faculties, Harwood “what's false is that he is not capable of doing the job right now or he's not mentally in tune with the demands of the job.” He insisted that “any aide who engages with him or reporters, we can see this.”

“The gears of his mind are working. That's an issue pushed by right-wing media. But it's not correct” Harwood huffed. 

He added that Biden’s “biggest political problem right now is five dollar a gallon gas. Gas is not five dollars a gallon because Joe Biden’s old. His legislative program is not stymied in Congress because Joe Biden is old. It's because he got a 50-50 Senate. And one of the members of that Democratic Senate comes from a Trump +39 state.” 

It’s clear no amount of gaffes, slips and falls, or mental hiccups from Biden will make Harwood acknowledge that having an almost eighty year old President is not a good idea. This isn’t partisan. Nobody should be elected at that age, regardless of party. 

This biased segment was made possible thanks to the endorsement of Dove & Chevrolet. Their information is linked. 

To read the relevant transcript click “expand”: 

CNN’s Reliable Sources
6/19/2022
11:05:33 a.m. Eastern

JOHN HARWOOD: Without taking a stand on whether he’s too old to run for reelection, let me just run through what's true, what's false and what gets conflated. What's true is the presidency is a hugely taxing job. Mentally and physically. And Joe Biden is old. He doesn't talk or walk as smoothly as he once did. That suggests challenges. When you get into your 80s, which he's about to do, the risk of health problems grows with every year. 

On the other hand, what's false is that he is not capable of doing the job right now or he's not mentally in tune with the demands of the job. Anybody, any aide who engages with him or reporters, we can see this. The gears of his mind are working. That's an issue pushed by right-wing media. But it's not correct. And what gets conflated is this. President Biden is in a weak political position right now, and because he’s old, people think he’s weak because he’s old. 

His biggest political problem right now is five dollar a gallon gas. Gas is not five dollars a gallon because Joe Biden’s old. His legislative program is not stymied in Congress because Joe Biden is old. It's because he got a 50-50 Senate. And one of the members of that Democratic Senate comes from a Trump +39 state. I think the other thing that we should point out is that younger, more vibrant presidents like Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, also had tremendous political problems in their second years. Got hammered in midterm elections. And they ended up politically healthier. So, Joe Biden would look a little bit younger if he was at 50 percent than at 40 percent. But, he's not. And so he's going to have to deal with these stories for some time.