MAGA Inc., the super PAC that backed former President Donald Trump’s presidential bid, is questioning President Joe Biden’s ability to serve a second term in a new television ad, with a narrator asking if Biden “can even survive until 2029.”
The ad starts with a video clip “I think I need to clear my mind a little bit here,” Biden paused before saying in a statement at the White House in February.
The clip is coming Biden’s statements at the White House After the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. The full video shows Biden talking about Trump’s comments about authorizing Russia.do whatever the hell they want“To NATO countries that he thinks aren’t paying enough for defense. Biden then paused for dramatic effect and said he was upset with Trump.
“I guess I have to clear my mind a little bit here and not say what I really think, but let’s be clear: That’s an outrageous thing for a president to say,” Biden said.
The clip in the ad cuts to the end of Biden’s statement.
Advertising The narrator then tells the audience, “We can all see the weakness of Joe Biden. If Biden wins, can he live until 2029?”
“The real question is: can we?” he continues, before introducing a clip of Vice President Kamala Harris laughing.
Ammar Moussa, a spokesman for the Biden campaign, told NBC News that the ad was a “sick and deranged act by a campaign that is battered and struggling.”
Moussa added: “Trump tried this strategy four years ago and was kicked by Joe Biden – he should see tonight, along with tens of millions of Americans, why President Biden will beat him again this November.”
The ad plays on one of Biden’s biggest weaknesses with voters heading into the 2024 election.
Polls show that the president’s age is a concern for voters. In January NBC News survey62% registered voters said they had “grave concerns” that Biden “lacks the necessary mental and physical health to serve a second term.”
It went up a bit from last November, when only 59% of voters had major concerns about Biden’s mental and physical health in a potential second term.
In recent weeks, Biden has pointed to a conflict with Trump to respond to criticism about his age. “Look at the other guy, he’s as old as me,” Biden said recently on NBC’s “Late Night with Seth Meyers.”
He then criticized Trump’s policies: “It depends on how old your ideas are,” Biden said. “Look, I mean, this is a guy who wants us back.”
Regardless of who wins in November — the 81-year-old Biden or Trump, 77, will be the oldest US president ever elected if he wins.
For now, voters say they are less concerned about Trump’s age. January NBC News The poll found that only 34% of voters had a “major concern” about Trump’s “lack of mental and physical health to serve a second term.”
The television ad began airing Thursday morning on MSNBC, CNN, Fox News and Newsmax, hours before Biden heads to the Capitol to deliver his State of the Union address. According to MAGA Inc., it will continue until Friday morning.
The group says it spent $500,000 to run the ad.
Republicans said throughout the presidential campaign Biden’s second term could mean that Harris will succeed him if something happens to the president. Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, who dropped out of the race on Wednesday, made a line about part of his stump speech.
Asked last year if she would support Trump if he won the Republican nomination, Haley told Fox News: “I would support him because I wouldn’t have Kamala Harris as president. We can’t afford that.”
He was ambivalent about whether he would endorse Trump near the end of his campaign, telling NBC News that he did not feel bound by an earlier pledge to support the GOP nominee.
“Never follow the crowd. Always make up your own mind,” said Haley, who ended her campaign Wednesday by quoting Margaret Thatcher. “Now it’s up to Donald Trump to win the votes of those in our party and beyond who don’t support him, and I hope he does.”