President Joe Biden, at 80 years of age, is the nation’s oldest serving president ever, and that is undoubtedly a factor in the increasingly apparent decline of his physical and mental health.
A video that has now gone viral on social media showed President Biden appearing to need assistance as he walked the halls of the Senate building last week while meeting with Democratic lawmakers, the Western Journal reported.
The clip sparked countless comments and observations — some humorous, others legitimately concerned — about the current actual status of the elderly president’s health and well-being.
Biden walking with Schumer
C-SPAN posted a video clip to its TikTok account on Friday that showed President Biden walking arm-in-arm with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) as they spoke with each other and ignored shouted questions from reporters.
@cspanofficial President Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) walk to the weekly Senate Democratic luncheon on Capitol Hill Thursday. #potus #joebiden #chuckschumer #capitolhill #uscapitol #politics #cspan ♬ original sound – C-SPAN
The clip was then shared widely on other social media platforms like Twitter, including by the decidedly pro-Trump account Brick Suit, who simply asked, “How does this clip make you feel about Biden’s fitness for office?”
Both funny and sad
In both instances, the comments in reply to the video were overwhelmingly not good for the president, and there was much mockery for both of the aged politicians, though also quite a bit of concern, too.
Some people joked that it looked like the two men were on their way to lunch at an assisted living facility for seniors, while others more seriously remarked that it reminded them of when their own parents or grandparents were dealing with the decline of old age, or even the horrors of degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and dementia.
Some also compared it to the video of Biden shuffling along arm-in-arm with civil rights activists during the recent anniversary of the “Bloody Sunday” incident in Selma, Alabama.
The whole world is seeing all of this
Speaking of that recent visit to Selma, the New York Post reported that President Biden appeared to stumble and nearly fall — again — as he climbed the steps to board Air Force One, something that has happened at least four or five times now since he first took office in 2021.
Biden’s recurring struggles with the stairs to the presidential plane may be a product of his “stiff gait,” which White House Physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor, in Biden’s annual health report released in February, attributed to “significant spinal arthritis, mild post-fracture foot arthritis, and a mild sensory peripheral neuropathy of the feet.”
Then, of course, there are Biden’s increasingly frequent gaffes that are no longer quite as humorous as they once were and now are a cause for alarm for some.
According to a count by Fox News, the president uttered some sort of verbal miscue virtually every other day throughout the month of January, which is a remarkable rate given the fact that his public appearances seem to be strictly limited by his White House staffers.
The Western Journal noted that all of this combined — the apparent difficulty walking, the struggle with stairs, and the ever-present gaffes, among other signs — are all quite concerning both with regard to the president’s actual health as well as the perception of frailty and weakness that is on display for the entire world to see.
