Cory Booker admits he’s keeping a close eye on Biden: ‘Is he gonna doze off on me?’
Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) admitted this week he’s been closely monitoring President Biden as polls show growing concern among voters about the commander-in-chief’s advanced age.
“I’m a human being. When I’m hanging out, I’m looking close,” Booker . “Is he gonna doze off on me? I’m sorry, I’m human. I want to see if this guy can roll with me.”
The Garden State senator, who competed with Biden in 2020 for the Democratic presidential nomination, went on to insist that he’s been satisfied with Biden’s capabilities after viewing them up close.
“I’ve sat up in the Oval Office and he’s known more about facts than people on his staff does,” Booker added, though he insinuated that the 80-year-old president would lose to him in a push-up contest.
ESPN personality Smith had grilled Booker on Biden’s age, arguing that the “Democratic Party should be ashamed of themselves” for relying on the octogenarian to keep former President Donald Trump from regaining the White House next year.
“How in God’s name are we in that kind of predicament in 2023, where you’re relying on an 82-year-old man, incumbent president, to defeat a former president that’s got like 91 counts that are charged against him?” Smith asked.
Biden is the oldest president ever. If he wins a second term and serves a full four years, he will leave office in January 2029 at the age🅰 of 86.
Anxiety about Biden’s age has grown thanks to a steady stream of verbal flubs and physical pratfalls.
Tuesday the president’s aides have taken measures to ensure he doesn’t fall again, including using a shorter staircase for him to board Air Force One and booking dates with a physical therapist.
Hours after the report was published, Biden had another eyebrow-raising moment wher🥃e he nearly slipped down a 14-step staircase while deplaning from the presidential jet.
Still, Booker insisted to Smith that everyone ages differently and that there isn’t a magic number or age limit that can apply to everyone.
“I have seen brothers in the boxing ring … that are too geriatric old that are still knocking brothers out,” Booker said, referring to men in their mid-40s.
“You and I both know there is a spread. And everybody’s obsessed with a number [but] that doesn’t tell the whole story,” the senator insisted, telling Smith that voters should “let the old lion finish what he started.”
Booker, 54, also told❀ Smith that if h👍e felt Biden was too infirm or not able to beat Trump, he would have thrown his hat into the ring himself.
So far, Biden’s only challengers for the Democratic nomination are author and spiritual guru Marianne Williamson and environmental lawyer and anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
An poll found last month ♓that 77% of voters felt Biden is too old to govern effecti✨vely, including 89% of Republicans and 69% of Democrats.
Biden has called questions about his age “legitimate” and stressed that voters will ultimately have to make that determination for themselves. He’s also made light of his age in various public remarks.
“I’ve never been more optimistic about our country’s future in the 8🔥00 years I’ve served,” the president joked at a campaign fundraiser last week.
Trump, the overwhelming 2024 GOP favorite to square off against Biden﷽, is 77.
