White House weighs risk of giving Joe Biden more public exposure

The question consuming the White House is whether to hide the 81-year-old President away or wheel him out more in this election year.

US President Joe Biden at the White House. Picture: AFP

How do you solve a problem like Joe Biden? At 81 years of age, the President’s public gaffes are ­growing, his mental agility is sliding, his walk has become a shuffle and yet he is about to embark on a gruelling presidential election campaign to convince voters that he is fit enough for another four years in power.

As Biden prepares to give his State of the Union address on Friday (AEDT), arguably the most important speech he will give ­before the election, the question now consuming the White House is whether to hide the President away or wheel him out more in this election year.

Both strategies carry a large degree of risk at a time when four major polls released this week show his Republican rival Donald Trump – who will effectively ­secure his party’s presidential nomination in the Super Tuesday primary ballots – leading him by between two and five percentage points.

With one new poll showing that 73 per cent of voters believe Biden is too old to be an effective president, the issue of age now poses a critical threat to his re-election chances.

The more that Biden appears in public, the more gaffes he makes in public, which only fuels people’s doubts about his age.

This week he confused Gaza and Ukraine, twice saying that America would be air-dropping food and supplies into Ukraine when he meant the Gaza Strip.

But hiding a president away by minimising his public appearances makes it hard for Biden to campaign effectively or persuade ­people that his mind is good enough for a second term in office. To hide Biden too much would be easily exploited by Trump as proof of the President’s alleged march towards senility.

Democrat strategists are leaning towards the conclusion that Biden has to become more public, give more speeches and attend more campaign events, despite the certainty that this will see him make many more gaffes.

Up until now they have erred on the side of “cocooning” him as much as possible during his term. Biden has given fewer interviews and news conferences than any president since Ronald Reagan.

US President Joe Biden with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in the Oval Office last week. Picture: AFP

But any plan to increase the President’s public appearances will be executed cautiously.

His campaign team are planning to tailor Biden’s election campaign to suit his main strength, which is face-to-face retail campaigning in smaller venues involving voters and families, rather than large press conferences where his gaffes get prime-time exposure.

The issue of Biden’s age has hounded him increasingly as his presidency has gone on, in part ­because he has visibly aged while in office.

But the issue has become turbocharged since the report of a special counsel on Biden’s handling of classified documents last month said he was a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”.

A furious Biden came out swinging, saying “I know what the hell I’m doing,” but then moments later mixed up the presidents of Mexico and Egypt.

Days earlier, he mixed the living with the dead when he claimed to have spoken to former French president Francois Mitterrand, who died in 1996, and former German chancellor Helmut Kohl who died in 2017.

Trump, who is 77, is also frequently making his own gaffes, including twice mixing up Biden with former president Barack Obama and confusing former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Nikki Haley.

But Trump’s gaffes get less ­attention and polls suggest they do not spark the concern of voters in the way that Biden’s do.

Democrats worry that the growing concerns about Biden’s age now risk overshadowing his re-election pitch.

The State of the Union address will place the President in the national spotlight and will give him a chance to try to disarm some of his critics if he can deliver a vigorous and polished performance.

But any major gaffes during the speech will only fuel the narrative that he is too old and should step aside for a younger candidate. It will be one of the President’s most important moments in this election year.