A retired journalist who covered President Joe Biden when he won his first U.S. Senate campaign in 1972 said Biden “should never have sought a second term” in an op-ed published Wednesday.
Biden has faced a growing number of calls to step aside as the Democratic nominee after he froze at times and made several verbal gaffes during a June 27 debate with former President Donald Trump. Retired journalist Curtis Wilkie said in the op-ed published by Mississippi Today that the president should not have sought a second term due to his noticeable mental decline.
“President Biden should never have sought a second term,” Wilkie wrote. “I have an unusual perspective on this discussion dominating American politics considering I’ve known Joe Biden longer than any reporter who ever covered him. I’ve witnessed over the years how the relentless demands of the presidency have ravaged other occupants of the White House. And I share with Biden the frailties of old age that grip us both and have begun to diminish our physical and cognitive powers.”
Curtis Wilkie, who covered eight presidential campaigns, writes that Biden should step aside.
“I have an unusual perspective on this discussion dominating American politics considering I’ve known Joe Biden longer than any reporter who ever covered him.”https://t.co/0jjTmS34GM
— Adam Ganucheau (@GanucheauAdam) July 17, 2024
“This is not a new concern of mine, produced by the president’s poor performance at last month’s debate,” Wilkie continued. “I reached this conclusion during a long conversation in March 2023 with two old friends who had closer political connections to Biden than my own.”
Wilkie, who is two years older than Biden, said that he has experienced similar issues that the president has displayed during public appearances.
“There began to be incidents in which I failed to be able to come up with the name of someone I know well,” Wilkie wrote. “Or a simple word will go into hiding, popping up hours later. When I go blank in a conversation I apologize, laugh and blame it on my aging brain. I’m assured it’s nothing, but I find it troubling.”
“I began to notice Biden had some of the same handicaps,” Wilkie continued. “He butchers names or can’t remember them at all. Sometimes he appears balmy. His enthusiasm seems withered.”
On multiple occasions, Biden said he spoke with people who had died, including claiming to have spoken with former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who died in 2017, and former French President Francois Mitterrand, who passed away in 1996, on two occasions in February. In September 2022, Biden asked for Republican Rep. Jackie Walorski of Indiana at a conference on hunger that took place several weeks after Walorski and two staffers were killed in a motor vehicle accident.
“I wish that Biden had lived up to his promise in 2020 to be a ‘transitional president.’ He had succeeded in driving Trump from the White House. His presidency has been mostly successful and free of catastrophe,” Wilkie wrote. “Months ago Biden could have delivered a statesmanlike speech — prepared to serve out his four-year term and ready to leave the job to a younger generation. To walk away, genuinely able to say, ‘Mission Accomplished.’”
Biden has also suffered multiple falls during his term in office, including one at the Air Force Academy in June 2023, falling down while on his bike in June 2022 and stumbling on the steps of Air Force One on multiple occasions.
“Instead, his Democratic Party is faced with its worst nightmare, the distinct possibility of a sweeping victory in November for Trump and his MAGA followers. And instead of leaving a strong personal legacy, Biden may be remembered in the history of this turbulent period as a selfish man, weakened by age, who clung to his office too long,” Wilkie concluded.
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