Trump: Biden not ‘too old’ to be president, but is ‘grossly incompetent’

Former President Trump seeks to separate President Biden’s age from the question of his fitness for highest office, according to a new interview set to air Thursday.

“Age is interesting because some people are very sharp, and some people do lose it, but you lose it at 40 and 50, also,” Trump said on SiriusXM’s “The Megyn Kelly Show.” “But no, he’s not too old at all. He’s grossly incompetent.”

Trump, 77, is running for president in 2024, and polling shows he’s likely to face a rematch against Biden, 80, in the general election. If elected, Trump would end his term well into his 80s.  

The former president also pushed back on polling data suggesting Americans think Biden is too old to be president. He noted in the interview that several of his friends and world leaders are still sharp, even into their 90s.

“No, not, not for the reason of ‘old,’” Trump said when asked whether Americans are right to be concerned, adding, “I have friends, Bernie Marcus, that are in their 90s and they’re sharp as a tack. They’re just, I mean, I would say just about what they used to be. No, not old. He’s incompetent.”

“You look at some of the great world leaders. They were in their 80s and they did, I mean, Churchill, so many people, they were phenomenal in their 80s,” he continued. “You know, there’s a great wisdom if you’re not in a position like him. But if you go back 25 years, he wasn’t the sharpest tack either.”

Trump has fiercely resisted any efforts to label him as too old for the presidency. In a series of Truth Social posts Sunday, the former president railed against a Wall Street Journal poll for merely asking whether voters thought Trump’s age was a concern.

“In a phony and probably rigged Wall Street Journal poll, coming out of nowhere to softened the mental incompetence blow that is so obvious with Crooked Joe Biden, they ask about my age and mentality. Where did that come from?” Trump asked in the posts.

The interview, airing noon Thursday, is the first Kelly has conducted with Trump since May 2016. The 2016 interview came as a feud between them reached its peak during Trump’s first campaign for the GOP’s presidential nomination.