With President Joe Biden, 80, announcing his plans to run for re-election, many critics — including Democrats — have been talking around the edges. He’s not as mentally strong as he once was, they say quietly.
But GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley didn’t mince words on Wednesday when she predicted Biden wouldn’t live until the end of a second term should he win.
“I think we can all be very clear and say with a matter of fact that if you vote for Joe Biden, you really are counting on a President [Kamala] Harris,” the former South Carolina governor said in an interview on the Fox News show “America Reports.”
“Because the idea that he would make it until 86 years old is not something that I think is likely,” she told hosts Sandra Smith and John Roberts.
Haley, 51, has called for mandatory “mental competency tests” for politicians older than 75, which would include former President Donald Trump.
If Biden wins re-election in 2024, he’d serve until 2029, when he would be 86. But should he pass away during his term — or step aside after two years — that could open the door for Vice President Kamala Harris to serve as many as 10 years in office.
Should Biden serve less than half of a second term, Harris could run only once and serve one four-year term, according to the tenets of the 25th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. But if he served half his term, she could run at the top of the ticket twice.
On Tuesday, a reporter asked White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre if Biden plans to serve a full second term.
“That’s something for him to decide,” she said. “I’m just not going to get ahead of the president.”
She was apparently told to walk that back because Jean-Pierre later took to Twitter to say: “As you know, we take following the law seriously. So I wanted to be sure that I didn’t go into 2024 more than is appropriate under the law. But I can confirm that if reelected, @POTUS would serve all 8 years.”
As you know, we take following the law seriously. So I wanted to be sure that I didn't go into 2024 more than is appropriate under the law. But I can confirm that if re-elected, @POTUS would serve all 8 years. https://t.co/n9OfMV4D1Y
— Karine Jean-Pierre (@PressSec) April 25, 2023
Another Republican presidential candidate says Biden running for re-election is tantamount to elder abuse — and claims that Biden isn’t really running the show, anyway.
“It’s a myth that Joe Biden is actually running for president. He’s not,” entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy said Monday on Fox News. “It’s just the managerial class using Joe Biden as a front to advance its own agenda. To them Biden’s cognitive impairment isn’t a bug. It’s a feature.”
“This is how the managerial class crushes everyday citizens – not with a bang, but with a whimper,” he said.
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Ramaswamy was harsh, calling Biden a “hollowed-out husk.”
“The administrative state more effectively controls its puppets when they are hollowed-out husks of themselves. The fact that it’s elder abuse is just a cost of doing business for Biden’s handlers. It’s revealing that the DNC [Democratic National Committee] refuses to host primary debates this year; they’re spitting in the face of their grassroots base.”
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Joseph Curl has covered politics for 35 years, including 12 years as White House correspondent for a national newspaper. He was also the a.m. editor of the Drudge Report for four years. Send tips to [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @josephcurl.