Former Trump White House Communications Director Alyssa Farah Griffin said Monday that it’s “remarkable” how voters don’t seem as concerned about Donald Trump’s age as they are about President Joe Biden’s.
On CNN, anchor John Berman noted how Trump has recently been mixing up names of other politicians, like on Saturday when he again referred to former President Barack Obama instead of Biden. Trump, rarely one to admit fault, has insisted he actually does so on purpose.
Berman then asked Griffin how often Trump would make such inaccuracies while he was in office.
Griffin replied that Trump isn’t “as sharp” as he was in 2016 and 2020.
“For some reason, that doesn’t necessarily come across to voters the same way,” she continued, as Berman referenced a New York Times/Siena College poll from late last month which showed 73 percent of respondents believe Biden is too old for the job, while only 42 percent feel the same about his predecessor.
“Donald Trump is not the strongest fighter that Republicans could have right now, and it’s remarkable how much voters don’t see the age as also an issue, because he is only three and a half years younger than President Joe Biden,” Griffin went on. “But there is something about the way they carry themselves that is just seen very differently.”
Griffin elaborated that Trump “has never been a super articulate or eloquent person, but he’s constantly mixing up heads of state. He’s mixing up names like Nancy Pelosi and Nikki Haley. I mean, it’s gotten worse. It hasn’t gotten better.”
The co-host of The View was referring to how Trump, during a January campaign stop in New Hampshire, repeatedly called out his Republican primary rival by name—rather than the then-House Speaker—for her actions on Jan. 6, while trying to deflect responsibility for the insurrection. Trump, unsurprisingly, claimed that that gaffe was intentional, too.
Biden, who has had a number of flubs of his own, recently framed the likely presidential contest as being about how old his opponent’s ideas are—a line of attack Griffin said can be effective.
“This is a guy who wants to take us back,” Biden said last week on NBC’s Late Night with Seth Meyers. “He wants to take us back on Roe v. Wade, he wants to take us back on a whole range of issues that are—50, 60 years, they’ve been solid American positions.”
This post was originally published on Daily Beast
