“We have an election coming up in 2024, in which it is very possible that we will have Donald Trump facing off against Joe Biden. If one of those people wins the presidency, he will be governing while he’s in his 80 year … age,” Gergen, a senior political analyst for CNN, said on CNN’s “New Day.”
“We’ve never seen anything like that before. And frankly, I think it’s a real risk. You know, 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’s a variety of other things you can’t do much about and to put somebody in that office with those kinds of vulnerabilities and give them four years, we don’t know where things will go.”
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Gergen said he thought it would be a “mistake” for either Democrats or Republicans to pick a presidential candidate to govern in their 80s. Biden is 79 years old; Trump, who is teasing a bid for the GOP nomination, is 75.
Gergen, who has been a White House adviser to former Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton, also suggested it was time for a new generation of leaders to take the leadership helm.
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“I think that the baby boomer population generally, the people … who were born after the war ended, they’ve had their time in the sandbox now and governing,” Gergen said. “And I think, frankly, that while there have been some good things, there’s generally been a sense of disappointment about, you know, how well they’ve governed … how badly they’ve governed.”
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Gergen’s remarks followed ones he made to CBS News, which were broadcast earlier this week when he was also asked about whether Biden should run again in 2024.
“In my judgment, sadly, I think that President Biden’s time as an active leader will end with this term — and should end with this term,” he said at the time, later affirming that the sentiment also carried to the House and Senate for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)
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Two sources last month told The Hill that Biden had told former President Obama he intended to run again in the next presidential cycle.
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