Biden flips age issue to boost Harris in Oval Office address

WASHINGTON – US President Joe Biden used the age issue to boost his preferred successor, Vice-President Kamala Harris, and isolate Donald Trump without naming the Republican nominee.

“I have decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation,” Mr Biden, 81, said in a wistful Oval Office address on July 24, three days after his decision to bow out of the 2024 US presidential race after

weeks of recalcitrance

.

With Mr Biden dropping out, Trump, 78, is now the

oldest candidate ever to run for the office

. He is nearly two decades older than Ms Harris, 59.

“You know, there is a time and a place for long years of experience in public life. But there’s also a time and a place for new voices, fresh voices, yes, younger voices. And that time and place is now,” Mr Biden said in a key moment during his 11-minute speech. 

It was the first chance that American voters had to hear from Mr Biden himself on why he abruptly quit the race after his

poor performance in a debate

with Trump escalated concern about his age and mental acuity.

He insisted, however, that he was the best candidate to take on Trump, whom he has repeatedly described as an existential threat to democracy. 

“I believe my record as president, my leadership in the world, my vision for America’s future, all merited a second term. But nothing – nothing – can come in the way of saving our democracy, and that includes personal ambition,” Mr Biden said, the closest he came to explaining why he quit. 

If elected as the next president of the United States, Ms Harris will be 60 when she takes the oath in January 2025.

Except for Mr Biden and Trump, recent presidents have been younger. Mr Barack Obama was 47, Mr Bill Clinton was 46, and Mr George W. Bush was 54 when elected. 

Mr Biden also hewed to his chosen theme of framing the 2024 election as

a battle for democracy

during his address to the nation.

“I believe America is at an inflection point. On those rare moments in history, when the decisions we make now determine the fate of our nation and the world for decades to come, America is going to have to choose between moving forward or backward, between hope and hate, between unity and division,” he said.

This was a note he had struck some seven months ago, while kicking off his 2024 campaign on Jan 5. He called Trump and his followers dangerous outliers and asked Democrats, independents and mainstream Republicans who cherish US democracy to back him.

“Democracy is on the ballot. Your freedom is on the ballot,” he said in Philadelphia, marking the third anniversary of the Jan 6, 2021, Capitol Hill riots, when Trump supporters tried to prevent Congress from certifying Mr Biden’s victory.

Since Mr Biden’s decision not to run,

Ms Harris has secured the endorsement of a majority of Democratic Party delegates,

who will formally cast a vote for her at the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago from Aug 19 to 22. 

Mr Bryan DeAngelis, partner at top DC consulting firm Penta, said Mr Biden’s address on July 24 had set the stage for Ms Harris’ campaign.

“I didn’t find it to be a very political speech, it was an appropriate tone for the Oval Office,” said Mr DeAngelis, a Democrat who was chief spokesman for presidential hopeful, Senator Chris Dodd, and later part of Mrs Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign. 

“But that framing of how we have a choice this November between hope and hate, unity and division, and that it’s time for a fresh face, a new generation, which is what Vice-President Harris represents – that’s going to be a contrast that you will see Harris play up as well throughout the election. 

“This was a good way to tee that up for her,” Mr DeAngelis told The Straits Times.

Professor Sean Wilentz, who teaches history at Princeton University, said the high point of Mr Biden’s speech was when he spoke of passing the torch to a new generation. 

“When John F. Kennedy spoke those words in 1961, he was the president of the new generation, picking up from the leadership that had guided the nation through the Great Depression and World War II,” said Prof Wilentz, who is among a group of historians with whom Mr Biden has conferred privately at the White House.

“Now Biden spoke as a member of the older generation that was passing the torch, the generation that had led the nation from the overthrow of Jim Crow through the end of the Cold War and its aftermath,” he told ST.

“I was moved: Here was Biden in 2024 giving us a bookend to JFK’s from more than 60 years ago, a graceful conclusion, not just to his public life, but to an entire era.”  

Jim Crow refers to the systemic racial segregation and discrimination laws enacted between the 1870s and 1960s. These laws were abolished by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Prof Wilentz said he expected Ms Harris to push on with Mr Biden’s framing of the election as a battle for democracy.

“I do think that Kamala Harris will embrace that battle, but very much in the spirit which she exudes, at once a grateful product of the reforms that came before but without some of the baggage of the past,” he added.

While Ms Harris owes her likely nomination entirely to Mr Biden and has praised him in her recent speeches, campaign calculations are another matter. 

After all, Mr Biden has a very low job approval rating, at less than 40 per cent, and Ms Harris may judge that she needs to put distance between herself and her key benefactor.