Poll: 86% of Americans say Biden too old for another term – National & International News – MON 12Feb2024

Poll: 86% of Americans say Biden too old for another term.

Senate leaders Schumer, McConnell have both hinted at sending US troops if Ukraine, Israel aren’t funded.

Poll: 86% of Americans say Biden is too old for another term

An ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted on Feb. 9 to 10 found that an overwhelming majority of Americans (86%) believe that President Joe Biden is too old for another four-year term in office. This poll was conducted after the Hur Report was widely publicized on Thursday, Feb. 8. In this report, Department of Justice Special Counsel Robert Hur found that Biden had not only “willfully” retained classified documents dating from his time as Vice President to Barack Obama, but that he had also shared classified information with the ghostwriter of his 2017 memoir. These are offenses for which any other government worker would get jail time.

However, Hur, a Republican and Trump appointee concluded that did not have enough evidence to win at trial and that Biden would appear to jurors as a “well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory“. The report went on to recount Biden’s memory lapses in interviews conducted by investigators on Oct. 8 and 9 last year. The report states that Biden could not recall the years that he served as Vice President and could not even recall “even within several years” when his son Beau had died.

Over half of the poll’s respondents (59%) believed that both Biden and Trump were too old to be President. A further 3% thought only Trump was too old (adding up to 62%) while 27% thought only Biden was too old (adding up to 86%). 

Respondents trusted Biden more than Trump to handle the issues of abortion, classified documents, healthcare and climate change. However, respondents thought Trump was more capable of handing crime, immigration and inflation. 

You can see the full poll results here (opens in new tab).

Senate leaders Schumer, McConnell have both hinted at sending US troops if Ukraine, Israel aren’t funded

After the collapse of a previous bill tying military and humanitarian aid to Israel and Ukraine to action on the US border, Senate leadership is now teeing up a standalone bill to fund the wars in Israel and Ukraine and increase aid to Taiwan. The new bill will cost just over $95 billion. Its prospects for passing in the House are unclear even if it passes in the Senate.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has pushed hard for the bill and hopes to bring it to a full vote on Wednesday. In a recent MSNBC interview, Schumer stated, “If we don’t aid Ukraine, Putin will walk all over Ukraine, we will lose the war, and we could be fighting in Eastern Europe in a NATO ally in a few years. Americans won’t like that”.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) also supports the bill and echoed similar sentiments to Schumer’s. Ahead of a weekend procedural vote on the bill, McConnell told reporters “our partners don’t have the luxury of pretending that the world’s most dangerous aggressors are someone else’s problem. And neither do we”. McConnell added, “We don’t wield American strength frivolously. We do it because it’s in our own interest. We equip our friends to face our shared adversaries, so we’re less likely to have to spend American lives to defeat them”.

In response to Schumer’s original comment, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) proposed the Senators Can Help Underpin Military Engagement and Readiness Act (SCHUMER) Act. In a statement on Twitter, Luna wrote “In honor of Chuck Schumer, I’ll be introducing a bill that will require any politician who advocates for sending American troops to Ukraine to be required to fight on the front lines with them”. The language of the bill calls for a deployment of “not fewer than six months to active duty in support of a contingency operation”.

Perhaps we’ll soon see a similar proposal entitled the Make Congressional Cowards Owned by Nefarious Ne’er-do-wells Endanger Life and Limb (MCCONNELL) Act.