Biden’s memory lapses will be an election issue, but so will Trump’s hallucinations | Opinion

President Biden and former President Trump’s increasingly frequent memory losses, which can be attributed to their advanced ages, have become the No. 1 issue in the race for the November elections. But don’t be so sure that Trump enjoys a big advantage on this issue.

First, both Biden, 81, and his likely Republican rival Trump, 77, are making increasingly more gaffes in their public appearances.

For every recent Biden verbal misstep that Trump gleefully makes fun of, Biden is now shooting back citing an equally embarrassing Trump hallucination. If Trump gets the Republican nomination, as it seems likely, expect to be bombarded with TV ads in which each candidate will depict the other as a clueless old man.

In recent weeks, Biden confused the leaders of Egypt and Mexico, and France’s President Emmanuel Macron with that country’s late president, Francois Mitterrand.

Trump, in turn, recently confused the leader of Hungary with the president of Turkey, and on Jan. 19 mixed up — three times in the same speech — his Republican primary rival Nikki Haley with former Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi.

Trump absurdly claimed that Haley was to blame for not securing the Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. Trump was apparently referring to former speaker Pelosi, who he had accused in the past of allegedly having failed to protect the Capitol building from the rioters.

Trump, like Biden, has a long history of both mental lapses and off-the-wall remarks. In November, he confused the leaders of China and North Korea, and said that North Korean leader “Kim Jong Un leads 1.4 billion people.” In fact, North Korea has a population of 27 million.

When he was president, Trump famously urged Americans to inject themselves with disinfectant to combat COVID-19.

But fears about Biden’s mental fitness are dominating the headlines since prosecutor Robert Hur issued a Feb. 8 report in which he described Biden as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

Hur, a Trump appointee, had interviewed Biden for five hours on Oct. 8 and 9. During those interviews, while discussing whereabouts of secret documents on Afghanistan, Biden at one point asked, “When did I stop being vice president? In 2009, am I still vice president?” the Hur report said. The Biden campaign says the president was focused on the Hamas terrorist attack that had taken place hours earlier, and that Hur’s report was a political hit job.

A presidents’ age and memory are legitimate voter concerns. And many wish, me included, that both Biden and Trump would step aside and allow younger candidates to run in November.

But if Americans are forced to choose between Biden and Trump, I don’t rule out that many Americans will conclude that the issue isn’t who has the best memory, but who has the best instincts.

If Biden doesn’t remember in the middle of a conversation about Afghanistan whether he was vice-president in 2009, he can Google it, or ask his aides to check it out.

But Trump has a much bigger problem: In addition to his frequent senior moments, he has horrible instincts. He put America’s democracy at risk by trying to subvert the results of the 2020 elections, and he instinctively sides with the dictators of Russia, North Korea and other countries. He has questioned U.S. aid to Ukraine and threatened to withdraw from the NATO alliance.

Trump’s words have already done significant damage. Trump’s threat to abandon NATO drove a wedge within the Western alliance, and probably emboldened Putin to invade Ukraine.

In addition, Trump’s racist claim that “immigrants are poisoning the blood of this country,” as well as his questionable stands on climate change, gun safety and abortion, are likely to cost him votes in the elections.

And now, of all things, Trump has become the main obstacle to a bi-partisan effort in Congress to secure the border with Mexico, which had long been a key Republican campaign issue. At Trump’s request, the Republican bloc in the House has opposed a bi-partisan Senate bill that contained strong border security measures.

Trump opposed it because he didn’t want to solve the immigration crisis before November, which would deprive him of his main campaign issue.

Granted, Trump looks more vigorous, but he makes as many gaffes as Biden.

While the conventional wisdom among political pundits is that Trump is the favorite to win in November, I wouldn’t make any bets.

Trump and Biden’s mutual accusations of senility will neutralize each other. And if the economy continues to recover and Biden doesn’t make more atrocious gaffes than his rival, the president could still win the race.

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