WSJ article discusses pros and cons of aging presidents, but doesn't mention the accumulated wisdom of old age.
At 80, Trump Is Everywhere and Showing Signs of Age
By making the president an omnipresent figure, White House advisers are surfacing both vigor and flubs
ET
WASHINGTON—President Trump closed his eyes and appeared to nod off while seated in a suite this week at an NBA Finals game in New York City as cameras caught him snacking on french fries and pizza. He returned to the White House after 2 a.m.
By 10 a.m. the next day, he offered a lengthy critique of a recently published Wall Street Journal editorial to a reporter who called him on his cellphone, and said the downing of a U.S. Apache helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz “wasn’t a big deal.” Hours later, he ordered strikes on Iran in retaliation for the incident.
As Trump approaches his 80th birthday on Sunday, he and his advisers have made a strategic decision to turn the president into an omnipresent figure in American life, drawing a contrast with his octogenarian predecessor, Joe Biden. Trump makes regular marathon appearances in the Oval Office, he answers reporters’ cold calls and he tees off on social media at all hours of the day and night.
The result is that Americans are seeing more of both the good and the bad of an aging president.
In question-and-answer sessions that sometimes last more than 30 minutes, the president spars with reporters, delivering one-liners that ripple across cable news and the internet.
But cameras often zoom in on his bruised hands, stooped posture and closed eyes. And he sometimes trips over his words and confuses details. He has referred to Greenland as Iceland. He has called the Strait of Hormuz the Strait of Iran. And he has mixed up recent conflicts in South America and the Middle East.
The White House disputed reports that Trump fell asleep during the NBA Finals game, saying the camera angle was misleading, and blamed the bruising on his hands on frequent handshaking.
Trump is the oldest man to become president—taking the oath of office for the second time at age 78 and seven months old. Biden was five months younger when he was inaugurated. The Journal previously reported that Trump’s hearing has deteriorated, his skin is delicate, and he has resisted common treatments for the swelling in his legs. Between his last two annual physicals, he gained 14 pounds.
Asked earlier this year about Trump’s aging, Rep. Ryan Zinke (R., Mont.) said Trump has slowed. “This job ages you,” Zinke said. “His pace isn’t as it once was.”
To illustrate the point, he turned to an analogy about a football player running the 40-yard dash in 4.1 seconds. “When you run a 4.1, it’s like you’re lightning,” he said. “He isn’t a 4.1 anymore, he’s a 4.3. He’s still fast compared to every human on Earth.”
Trump was born in 1946—making him among the oldest members of the baby boomer generation who came of age in the post-World War II era and have reigned ever since as the wealthiest American cohort. And 1946 proved to be a magical year for America’s leaders: Two other U.S. presidents share the birth year, with George W. Bush’s 80th birthday in July and Bill Clinton’s in August.
Bush was 62 when he finished his two terms in office, and since he left, he has had two partial knee replacements and a stent implanted to address a blockage near his heart. Clinton was 54 after his two terms in office; several years after leaving, he had quadruple bypass surgery and later had stents implanted in his coronary artery.
Clinton has made occasional references to aging. Over the past three decades he has said that he has “more yesterdays than tomorrows” in his life. “I’m too old to gild the lily,” Clinton, then 78, said at the 2024 Democratic National Convention, and noted that he was slightly younger than Trump.
Biden stands out as a warning about the hazards of aging in office. Born in 1942, he had sought a second term that would have put him in the White House until he was 86 years old. Biden and his team categorically denied signs of age-related decline before he dropped out of the race amid a party revolt following his alarming June 2024 debate performance. Shortly after leaving office, Biden was diagnosed with an advanced form of prostate cancer.
Reflecting on his predecessor’s decline in office, Trump recently said Biden is “the worst thing to ever happen to old people.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump proves his fitness for office by taking questions from reporters and maintaining what she called a “relentless schedule.” Leavitt provided a list of Trump’s past two weeks of meetings. The list details an average of more than two dozen calendar entries a day on weekdays, including calls and meetings with business leaders, advisers and cabinet secretaries.
Trump plans to spend his birthday projecting the kind of youth and vigor he values—hosting a first-of-its-kind Ultimate Fighting Championship cage match Sunday evening on the White House lawn.
He lamented the upcoming milestone this week while talking to one of his top health advisers. “You don’t have to wish me a happy birthday because I’m not happy about that birthday that I’m having,” Trump said. “It’s not a number I like, but I’m here nevertheless.”
He has previously signaled similar dislike for the day.
“There’s a certain point at which you don’t want to hear ‘Happy Birthday.’ You just want to pretend the day doesn’t exist,” he said two years ago during a campaign rally in Nevada, interrupting the crowd as they began singing “Happy Birthday.”
The president has used an array of strategies to discuss aging, ranging from a touch of candor to flat-out denial. “I used to say, ‘I’m the youngest in the room,’” Trump told an audience earlier this year at Davos. “Now I’m among the older. I hate to say it. I don’t feel old.”
Trump told a group of retirees he addressed at the Villages in central Florida last month, “I don’t happen to be a senior—I’m much younger than you.” He has technically been a senior citizen since he turned 65 during former President Barack Obama’s first term.
“Wouldn’t you like to be my age? It’s young, vital, vibrant,” he told the gray-haired audience. “I’m much, much younger than the people in this room, but I feel I can relate to you anyway.”
The president is open about his fears of showing frailty—occasionally riffing about how much negative attention he would get if he stumbled on a set of stairs. “I’m very careful when I walk, by the way, because if I ever fall…that headline will go on for years,” Trump said at a recent Rose Garden event.
That concern added a touch of drama to a hot, smoggy morning during his recent trip to Beijing when Chinese Leader Xi Jinping greeted Trump at the Great Hall of the People—the Chinese government building that is accessible via a bank of roughly 40 stairs. No railings were in sight. Trump and Xi, 72, ascended about two-thirds of the way before the Chinese leader stopped Trump on a landing to take in the view of Tiananmen Square. They reached the top of the stairs without stumbling.
Some Democrats are focusing on signs of Trump’s aging, particularly the spate of videos showing the president with his eyes closed at meetings. “This is not something that’s normal, and the White House just has to come clean, explain to American people what is going on,” Rep. Ted Lieu (D., Calif.) said in an interview.
Lieu raised the concerns during a recent congressional hearing with Secretary of State Marco Rubio. He played a video from a recent cabinet meeting where Trump appeared to nod off as Rubio spoke. “Imagine what he’s like when the cameras are not there,” Lieu said. Rubio disputed that Trump was dozing, calling Lieu’s concerns “absurd and ridiculous.” Trump, he said, “works day and night, long hours, every single day.”
The White House also pushed back on Lieu’s criticism, saying Democrats had no credibility to call out an aging leader after backing Biden for most of his term even as he declined while in office.
“The Democrat coverup of Joe Biden’s decline remains one of the worst political scandals in modern American history,” Leavitt said. “President Trump and the White House have nothing to hide.”
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Appeared in the June 13, 2026, print edition as 'Aging Poses Test As Trump Turns 80'.
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