With recent polls showing voter concern over Biden’s age, Republicans are divided about whether it should be a line of attack as the 2024 race heats up.
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said Wednesday that President Joe Biden, 80, will likely die within five years and that his supporters would have to count on Vice President Kamala Harris if he were to win re-election next year.
“He announced that he’s running again in 2024, and I think that 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 Harris, because the idea that he would make it until 86 years old is not something that I think is likely,” Haley, 51, said in an interview on Fox News.
In an unusually blunt response from the White House about Haley’s comments, Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates told NBC News, “As you know, we don’t directly respond to campaigns from here. But honestly, I forgot she was running.”
Biden officially announced his re-election campaign Tuesday with a video that took aim at “MAGA” Republicans, referring to Trump’s 2016 campaign slogan “Make America Great Again.”
Haley has framed her presidential bid around a “new generation” of leadership. In a speech launching her campaign, she suggested that politicians over 75 be required to take a mental competency test — a proposal that first lady Jill Biden slammed as “ridiculous.”
Her latest remarks come as Biden, the oldest president in U.S. history, works to combat concerns about his age heading into 2024. Republicans are weighing how far to push the issue in the campaign without alienating older Americans who tend to be dependable voters.