President Joe Biden, 80, the oldest person to serve as president, admitted to donors Monday there are questions regarding his age as he seeks reelection in 2024.
Concerns have been raised about a decline in Biden's cognitive abilities, and a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll showed 75% of respondents, including 63% of Democrats, said Biden is too old to be president, and just 37% said Biden was mentally sharp enough for the presidency.
"You may have noticed, a lot of people seem focused on my age," Biden said to laughter, according to a transcript of his speech at a Broadway for Biden fundraiser at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater in New York. "Well, I get it, believe me. I know better than anyone."
Biden would be 85 should he be reelected and finish his second term in office.
"It sounds like hyperbole, but it's a fact," he said. "I've never been more optimistic about our country's future in the 800 years I've served," he said to laughter. "We just have to — we have to remember who in the hell we are."
Biden, who was in New York for the U.N. General Assembly that kicked off Tuesday, made a similar reflection about his age during a fundraiser earlier Monday at an event hosted by the Black Economic Alliance for the Biden Victory Fund at the St. Regis Hotel.
"As a United States senator for 360 years, 36 years, I always had great relationships," Biden said, according to the Washington Examiner. "I'm looking forward to this campaign because we've got a story to tell, a record to run on, and a nation to save. That's not hyperbole."
Biden's White House staff has repeatedly attempted to counter the narrative of a Joe Biden too old to serve, let alone to serve for a second term. Photos of Biden vigorously bicycling are often released, along with such defenses as "80 is the new 40." Aides have made a point of noting that the role of president, with all its attendant stresses and travel obligations, can be wearying for a chief of any age, and that Biden is bearing up well.
But there are also moments when Biden has stumbled – more than once on the stairs to Air Force One, for instance – and moments when he appears disoriented on stage during public appearances are held up by critics as evidence of his advanced age and alleged cognitive decline.
These come against the backdrop of those polls showing some significant public appetite for more youthful leadership in Washington.
Newsmax archives contributed to this report.