'60 Minutes' Host Says Biden Seemed 'Tired' During Interview: 'We Could See It'
There is a reason that every sitting United States president ages in dog years.
Look at any president in recent memory and compare how they looked at the start of their term and the end of their term, and it’s almost jarring seeing the toll that the presidency can take on a man.
The job of president would be a daunting task for a man entering the tail end of his prime — let alone a man who left his prime decades ago.
And to be clear: The octogenarian currently occupying the Oval Office is, generously, not in his prime.
This is not news to anyone with a pulse.
Yet, when President Joe Biden appeared on “60 Minutes” Sunday night, you could almost palpably feel his biggest supporters looking for something — anything — to generate some positive energy in and around him.
That didn’t happen. If anything, the entire segment flopped so badly that it turned into an advertisement for former President Donald Trump.
And yet despite that unintended endorsement of the former president, Trump took a hatchet to the entire segment, lambasting “60 Minutes” for lobbing nothing but softballs to the potentially soft-headed president.
“The show ’60 Minutes’ should be ashamed of themselves. They just interviewed Crooked Joe Biden, and led him along like a lost child,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “Each question contained the answer, and was so weakly and apologetically asked that it was a JOKE which should be considered a campaign contribution to the Democrat Party.”
That being said, it’s hardly a surprise that Trump, Biden’s chief political rival, would so viciously go after the man who appears to be weaponizing the Justice Department against him.
What is a tad more surprising is the admission that the haggard old man masquerading as president is just that — a haggard, old man — coming from “60 Minutes” host Scott Pelley.
In the transcript of the episode, Pelley opened up about just how “tired” the president seemed.
“As we spoke to the president, his secretary of state was in Israel; his defense secretary was at a NATO meeting on Ukraine,” Pelley said. “America’s oldest president seemed tired from directing all of this.”
Earlier in the episode, Pelley noted the toll that the job was taking on Biden: “It had been a rough week, and we could see it on him. Mr. Biden will be 81 next month. And he has said that when he’s tired, his life-long stutter can creep back in.”
This is all to say: If a man seems like a tired, old man, talks like a tired, old man, and acts like a tired, old man … He’s not a spring chicken.
And while youth obviously presents its own inherent problems (like college student stupidity), the last thing this country, and perhaps the world, needs right now is a doddering old fool who can’t sit through the extended cut of “The Lord of the Rings” without dozing off.
Even in the most curated, protected environment imaginable, like “60 Minutes,” the president can’t help but come off as old and slow.
That’s a massive problem, and one that won’t be so easily addressed given the way time works and the fact that Biden will only get older (and slower? Is that even possible?) as he trudges his way towards a lifeless re-election bid.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
