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Trump turns 80
President Donald Trump turns 80 on Sunday, June 14, and the milestone is marked by hosting a UFC event at a stadium erected on the South Lawn of the White House.
“Mr Trump is already the oldest president to be inaugurated”
The White House has pushed back on scrutiny over Trump’s age and capacity to govern, with White House spokesperson Davis Ingle telling Associated Press that Trump is in “excellent health” and “working nonstop to solve problems and deliver on his promises.”
Critics and lawmakers have pointed to videos and public moments they say show Trump dozing off, including a June 3 hearing in Congress where Democratic Representative Ted Lieu showed videos that he claimed showed Trump dozing off during Cabinet meetings.
At that hearing, Secretary of State Marco Rubio rejected the allegation, saying, “That's false. I've never seen him fall asleep,” and added, “On the contrary, the guy doesn't sleep, which is a big problem because he calls me at two in the morning.”
Health claims vs doubts
While the White House has emphasized medical reassurance, the i Paper reported that health experts expressed concern about Trump’s physical health due to bruising on his hands and a rash on his neck, prompting the White House to give details of his treatment.
After an examination involving “22 medical professionals,” the White House pronounced that the President had received a “perfect bill of health,” but Dr Katie Pruszynski, a political psychologist and vice chair of the American Politics Group, said the medical reports can look “completely detached from reality.”
The Guardian described critics saying Trump is struggling to stay awake during official meetings and quoted Tara Setmayer saying, “It’s on display almost daily as he struggles to stay awake during official meetings.”
Setmayer also argued that the behavior amounts to more than ordinary aging, saying, “These are not signs of a well-adjusted adult approaching 80 years old.”
What’s at stake
As Trump enters his ninth decade, the political stakes in the coverage include the midterms, with the National saying Trump’s big day comes as his approval rating is dropping and posing a conundrum for Republicans hoping to maintain control of the House of Representatives and the Senate in November.
“posing a conundrum for Republicans hoping to maintain control of the House of Representatives and the Senate in November”
The i Paper also framed foreign-policy stakes around concerns about Trump’s “mental state,” quoting John Owens warning that his “ad-hoc” approach exposes allies to threats to their national security.
In the same report, Owens added that “it seems inevitable that the perceptions of erratic governance and strategic US weakness will not have been lost on states hostile to the US,” tying the domestic debate over age to how adversaries may view American leadership.
Meanwhile, Newsweek reported that lawmakers on both sides have called for greater checks on presidents, including an independent commission to assess presidential health and mental fitness, and it quoted S. Jay Olshansky saying age should be irrelevant when judging capability while noting that the probability of things going wrong rises with age.
