President Joe Biden's spill last week at an Air Force Academy commencement ceremony has put his age and fitness in the spotlight again, The Hill reported.
Biden, 80, had just delivered a speech to Air Force graduates last Thursday when he tripped and fell on a sandbag while heading back to his seat after handing out diplomas.
"A vote for President Biden is actually a vote for President Harris. We are running against Kamala Harris," GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley said during a televised appearance Monday.
Many Republicans have cast Biden as too old for another White House term in the 2024 campaign and made his age and mental fitness a feature of their messaging — if reelected, Biden would be 83 at his second inauguration and he is already the oldest president in U.S. history. Recent polls show that most voters of most ages wonder the same thing.
"Joe Biden is unwell. He's unfit for office. He's incoherent, incapacitated, and confused. He doesn't know where he is half the time," Florida Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., declared last spring.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has also previously highlighted similar concerns.
GOP strategist Doug Heye told The Hill it is fair game for Republicans to focus on Biden's age.
"Because of the fall that Biden had, it's a topic that voters talk about and not just partisan Republican primary voters, but Democrats, at least privately, will say that they have concerns and justifiable ones about somebody who's 86 being president," he said. "One of the core tenets of Biden's run was that he would be a stabilizing force. And this raises questions as to whether or not that's really true."
The White House said Biden was fine after the fall.
Kevin Munoz, a spokesperson for the Biden campaign, said Republicans were "resorting to the same tired, failed, and false attacks on Vice President Harris that they've used over and over again, because they can't argue on the merits of their unpopular, extreme MAGA agenda.
"At some point, the Beltway media might pay more attention to views of the American people who voted in record numbers for the Biden-Harris ticket, rather than recycled bogus rhetoric of the GOP and its political operatives," Munoz added.