He’s stumbled up the stairs of Air Force One, confused names of high-profile leaders and issued his fair share of cringeworthy gaffes – and his name isn’t Joe Biden.
President Donald Trump turned 79 earlier this month, which served as a reminder that by the time he leaves office, he’ll break the 82-year-old Biden’s record of being the oldest president in U.S. history.
Yet even as he continues to dominate the political landscape, Trump’s ubiquitousness has begun to expose him to more ‘senior moments’: tripping up the stairs – something he mocked Biden for doing – confusing the United Kingdom and the European Union alongside British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the G7, and possibly forgetting the details of conversations he’s had.
That’s where Gavin Newsom saw his opening to turn the aging tables against the Republicans, a tactic that other Democrats have taken note of and attempted to amplify.
Newsom first teed up the line that Trump’s ‘not all there’ during their recent row over anti-ICE protests in downtown Los Angeles, when he said the president mischaracterized details of their June 6 phone call.
The governor is so adamant his side of the story is true that on Friday he sued Fox News Channel in a $787 million defamation suit asking for $787 million, arguing the right-wing network misleadingly edited a video to back Trump’s timeline.
The fracas started during the June 12 episode of The Daily podcast, when Newsom complained that Trump ‘starts making up all these things he claimed he told me about.’
‘Which, I mean, honestly, starts to disturb me on a different level, that maybe he actually believed he said those things and he’s not all there,’ Newsom said.
‘It would send shivers up your spine’
The New York Times’ Michael Barbaro, the host of the podcast repeated back, ‘He’s not all there?’
‘I don’t know,’ Newsom continued, adding that Trump ‘claimed he had another conversation with me’ once the president decided to deploy U.S. Marines to Los Angeles, a conversation the governor said never happened.
At a June 12 press conference, Newsom, again, articulated that the last time he spoke to Trump was Friday night.
‘He had a mysterious conversation with me three days later,’ Newsom said. ‘You can’t even make this stuff up,’ he scoffed.
The governor was then asked if he had a readout of his June 6 conversation with the president.
‘Oh I would love to share the readout, but I revere the office of presidency, so I’ll keep it in confidence,’ Newsom said.
‘He has quite literally made up components of that conversation, he has been a stone-cold liar about what he said we talked about. He never discussed the National Guard. Period full-stop,’ the California governor continued.
‘I would love to share with you what he actually talked about. It would send shivers up your spine,’ Newsom added.
Of windmills and whales
The Democrats’ No. 2 in the Senate, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, also took a crack at Trump’s age last week during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that was dedicated to focusing on Biden’s cognitive decline.
‘Now, I’d like you to see a short video that includes some other examples of cognitive ability,’ Durbin told attendees.
Durbin then rolled clips of some of Trump’s greatest hits.
There was the GOP nominee claiming Haitian immigrants were ‘eating the dogs’ during his debate with Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris.
There was a trademark Trump rant about windmills: ‘The windmills are driving the whales crazy obviously.’
Later in the hearing, Durbin pointed to a fresher example, when Trump confused the U.K. and the E.U. standing alongside Starmer last week.
Trump did so as pages of the newly-signed trade deal with the U.K. were falling out of his folder, with the president quickly making a crack about the wind and Starmer leaning down to fetch them.
The president then answered some questions – and did so again, later in the day.
Why Newsom’s hit likely won’t land
That, argued former first lady Jill Biden’s ex-press secretary Michael LaRosa, is why Democrats’ attacks on Trump’s fitness will fall flat.
‘President Trump doesn’t miss the opportunity to engage the media and through the press, communicate directly and often with the country. Trump drives the public’s perception about his age and health because he confronts any perceived weakness,’ LaRosa told the Daily Mail.
Once LaRosa left the East Wing, he was critical that Biden’s aides kept the aging Democratic president hidden away.
‘Much to my disappointment, President Biden and his team did not do anything to dispel the public’s poor impression of his challenges or vulnerabilities as it related to his age and condition,’ LaRosa recalled. ‘President Biden and his team decided to avoid media interviews, network town halls, frequent press avails, and any environment that was organic and unscripted.’
That led to Biden’s debate performance – which happened a year ago Friday – being what ended his presidential campaign.
‘Ultimately, Biden’s under communication was his kryptonite and Trump’s overcommunication is his superpower,’ LaRosa noted.
Republican strategist Doug Heye was also skeptical that Democrats could get age-related attacks on Trump to land.
‘Even if Democrats are right – and Trump being a ball of energy, even at 79, makes that a weak hand to play – it only highlights how Democrats never said anything about Biden’s age and even stood behind him after a debate performance that, to anyone with two eyes and intellectual honesty – was not just a one-off disaster,’ Heye told the Daily Mail.
Asked if the messenger matters – and if Newsom could land a better age-related attack on Trump because he wasn’t part of the Biden administration, Heye was still dubious.
‘Unless Newsom didn’t have a TV, he saw what we all saw,’ Heye said.