The Economist Editor-in-Chief on Biden: I Was ‘Shocked to See a Befuddled Old Man Struggling to Recall Words and Facts’

EXCERPT:

MINTON BEDDOES: "Well, for start, we actually argued back in 2022 that he should be a one-term president and should not run again, which was something, in large part, because of his age, and that was massively reinforced last week. I mean, I watched the debate, like millions of Americans, and was shocked, shocked to see a befuddled old man struggling to recall words and facts. And you’re right that maybe this was an episode, but the president has not really been made available to very many people in informal settings or settings where he can really be questioned. And I think, like many Americans, we were just shocked at that performance, and that doesn’t detract at all from his accomplishments. I completely agree with you all that his presidency has been incredibly effective, he's passed tremendous amounts of legislation, but I think what most Americans who were as shocked as we were by that performance, we’re thinking about was the next four years, because everyone knows an older person, a frail older person, and unfortunately, and this is brutally true, the passage of time goes one way, and the impact on mental acuity really goes one way, and I think that’s the reason that we were — we wrote what we did, which was pretty tough, I admit, and that’s because this is the toughest job in the world, and you can’t run a presidency on autocue.”