A White House adviser to four presidents who released a book calling for younger leaders in Washington, D.C., is warning that elderly people "lose a step," and their "judgment is not quite as clear."
David Gergen told CBS News this weekend President Joe Biden's term "should end" in 2024 and reiterated to CNN there "a real risk" with having a president past age 80.
"We've never seen anything like that before, and, frankly, I think it's a real risk," Gergen told host John Berman on CNN's "New Day." "I just turned 80, and I can just tell you, John, you lose a step. Your judgment is not quite as clear as it was.
"There is a variety of other things you can't do much about, and to put somebody in that office with those kinds of vulnerabilities and giving them four years, we don't know where things will go."
Gergen called it "a mistake for either party" to put up an older president.
"We have an election coming up in 2024, in which it's very possible that we will have Donald Trump facing off against Joe Biden," Gergen said. "If one of those people wins the presidency, he will be governing while he's in his 80-year age."
Biden, 79, is the oldest president ever elected or serving, and Donald Trump, 75, would have left a potential second term in 2024 younger than what Biden was when he was entered the White House in 2021.
Gergen was a White House adviser for former Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton. He said baby boomers had their shot and have mostly blown it.
"I think that the baby boom population general, the people who were born after the war ended, they've had their time in the sandbox now in governing," Gergen said. "And I think, frankly, that while there have been some good things, there's generally been a sense of disappointment about how well they've governed, how badly they've governed."
Trump has yet to officially declare a 2024 presidential run. Biden said he intends to seek a second term.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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