Joe Biden’s fitness for the presidency was thrust to the centre of the 2024 White House race after Robert Hur, the special counsel investigating his handling of classified documents, issued a report on Thursday citing troubling memory lapses Biden experienced while being interviewed during the probe last year.
The assessment of Biden’s mental confusion — which triggered an angry response from him at a hastily arranged press conference on Thursday night — overshadowed the report’s conclusion, which was that the justice department would not issue criminal charges against the president.
But it points to age — Biden is 81 — as the president’s biggest vulnerability heading into a likely rematch for the White House against Donald Trump, who is 77, handing a political gift to Republicans.