The concerted effort to sell President Joe Biden as “sharp” added a sidelined Academy Award-winning septuagenarian to help with “circling the walkers ’round our senile old president,” as one social media user characterized events.
(Video: CNN)
With Biden, 81 and former President Donald Trump, 77, expected to be the respective presidential nominees for the Democratic and Republican Parties come November, polling about their ages have left a majority of voters believing both candidates are too old for a second stay in the White House.
Sunday, after actor Michael Douglas’ most recent performance as Benjamin Franklin debuted on Apple TV+ in the miniseries “Franklin,” the star joined CNN’s Fareed Zakaria and was questioned along the lines of politics and age.
After touting the outlier example of the Founding Father’s diplomacy abroad in his seventies, a central focus of “Franklin,” the host of “Fareed Zakaria GPS” noted how close Douglas was in age to the incumbent and asked, “Are you one of those people who wished he had bowed out…let the field choose somebody else? How do you think about that?”
“I think that I walk a little similar to him,” said the smirking actor before citing “people” he’s talked to who say, “he’s as sharp as a tack, he’s fine.”
“We all have an issue with memories as we get older. We forget names,” continued Douglas who added, “He’s overcome a stutter in his life, and sometimes he might.”
The celebrity’s admission of Biden’s shortcomings tempered compared to the gaslighting from Biden’s campaign that rolled out an ad titled “Sharp” to pitch the president as “sharp as a knife,” allegedly leaving opponents “nothing else to attack because they can’t attack the things that he’s doing that are so good for this country.”
Whether or not he realized he was arguing from unsteady ground, the actor pivoted his defense of Biden into an attack on Trump without naming the GOP leader as he compared cabinet support.
“His entire cabinet, including his vice president, everybody that’s in his cabinet would be more than happy to work with him again in a next term,” said Douglas of the incumbent before contrasting, “I cannot say that about the other candidate running because nobody in his cabinet from 2016 wants to be involved with him.”
Zakaria’s own attempt to defend Biden’s age backfired as he asserted the actor surely had plans to continue working over the next four or five years only to learn that Douglas had been in a state of retirement since he’d completed filming “Franklin” in 2022.
Again, the actor tried to pull the focus away from the aged Democrat as he referred to the 2024 contest as “probably the most important election of my lifetime,” and insisted, “We need somebody in control, in power, who has some experience and knows how to work on a global situation.”
“You can’t ask for one side for us to be active globally, but then internally say we’re just gonna isolate. It doesn’t work that way anymore,” he went on and argued, “I think this is a year also for us to really remind ourselves about local elections. I think if we’re going to kind of adjust, we have to start from the bottom up, not the top down. And so I think all of us who vote for president should be actively involved in our local elections, too.”
The outcome of Douglas’ sales pitch was far from well-received by many on social media who compounded the feigned vote of confidence in Biden’s mental acuity with the actor’s status among the Hollywood elite.
Isn’t it cute?
— Julia (@Jules31415) April 22, 2024
“The people I’ve talked to says he’s as sharp as a tack”
What people? The ones who’ve lied to us for 4yrs?
Yeah, Douglas is as credible as Biden’s press sec, KJP.— Charlene 4.11 (@Kenneth55389509) April 22, 2024
Thank goodness for Michael Douglas’s endorsement. Celebrity elite back Biden. I’m shocked.
— Matthew Pezzone (@MatthewPezzone) April 22, 2024
the tack pic.twitter.com/KxKrKqmKHd
— Chuck Lane (@chucklane) April 22, 2024
Ah, CNN. Still asking actors for their opinions on politics and quantum mechanics. Never change.
— The Sarcasticat (@TheSarcasticist) April 22, 2024
I’m so relieved an old actor is reassuring us that our even older potus is “sharp as a tack”
Thank you, Michael Douglas, for circling the walkers ‘round our senile old president pic.twitter.com/b8xeVvfN0C
— (@Allygeighter) April 22, 2024
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Author: Kevin Haggerty
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