Former President Donald Trump went on the defensive about his mental fitness for office at a rally in Pennsylvania on Sunday—insisting that he was “not that close to 80” and again calling for cognitive tests for presidential candidates.
Vice President Kamala Harris and her surrogates have been trying to portray Trump as mentally unfit for office after strange moments onstage at rallies and multiple canceled interviews. Last week, Politico’s Playbook reported that Trump was canceling events due to “exhaustion” as the 2024 campaign season entered its final two weeks.
“If you are exhausted on the campaign trail, it raises real questions about whether you are fit for the toughest job in the world,” Harris told supporters at a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan on Friday.
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On Sunday, Trump cited a report in The Wall Street Journal published Friday after a sit-down interview with the paper’s editorial board. The board, which included noted Trump critics like Peggy Noonan, said the former president showed no sign of mental decline during the interview. They also said he appeared “more confident” and “certainly more knowledgeable about policy than he was in 2015.”
“The one thing they said that was great, ‘We watched this guy for 20 years, the one thing we know is that he’s got no cognitive problem,’” Trump told moderator Sage Steele. “She may have a cognitive problem,” he quickly interjected, receiving cheers from a crowd of supporters in Lancaster.
Trump went on to repeat his call for a “cognitive test” for anyone running for president, but insisted this was not due to concerns over aging.
“Some of the greatest leaders in the world—and I’m not 80 and I’m not that close to 80—but in the Biden case, he’s 81 or 82,” Trump said. “And you know that’s OK, because I know people who are unbelievably successful—by the way a man who’s very successful is Rupert Murdoch, and he’s 93 or 94.”
President Biden turns 82 in November. Murdoch, the owner of News Corporation which owns Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones & Company, is 93.
Trump heaped praise on the Australia-born media mogul, insisting “He’s sharp as can be. I mean, he’s the same guy that I’ve known for 25-30 years. He’s sharp, and he’s in his nineties. We’ve had some of the greatest leaders in world history that are in their eighties.”
The Harris campaign was quick to jump on Trump’s most recent tangent, insisting the Republican nominee “appeared to forget his age” onstage and again called on him to release his medical records.
