He was supposed to be touting the economy but could not resist taking aim at an old foe. “Which is better: Sleepy Joe or Crooked Joe?” Donald Trump teased supporters in Pennsylvania this week, still toying with nicknames for his predecessor Joe Biden. “Typically, Crooked Joe wins. I’m surprised because to me he’s a sleepy son of a bitch.”
Exulting in Biden’s drowsiness, the US president and his supporters seemed blissfully ignorant of a rich irony: that 79-year-old Trump himself has recently been spotted apparently dozing off at various meetings.
The unlikely simpatico between the two men did not end there. Tuesday’s event marked the launch of a Trump roadshow designed to reassure voters that the US economy is in safe hands despite the evidence of their pockets. In that there was an uncomfortable echo of Biden’s travels to champion “Bidenomics”, which did not end well for him.
At every turn, Trump seeks to distance himself from his Democratic rival, accusing him of driving up inflation and illegal immigration and botching the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan. Yet now the Republican is finding himself shouldering the same burdens of an affordability crisis and the inexorable march of time.
“It’s hard not to see the parallels both in terms of their age and how that manifests itself and certainly the condition of the economy,” said Kurt Bardella, a political analyst and NewsNation contributor. “Trump has been cast in this role that Joe Biden had to play out and seemingly trying to use the same script, which is to convince people that you’re not feeling what you’re really feeling. It’s an unenviable political challenge.”
Biden and Trump are the two oldest presidents in US history. The Democrat was dogged by concerns over his mental and physical fitness during his four years in office, reaching a climax after a disastrous debate performance that led him to decide against seeking re-election. Biden’s aides were condemned for trying to shield his frailty from the public and media.
That has been useful political fodder for Trump, seeking to contrast Biden’s decline with his own political virility. He has created a “presidential walk of fame” at the White House where Biden is represented by the image of an autopen. He said of Biden recently: “He sleeps all the time – during the day, during the night, on the beach. I’m not a sleeper.”
Yet Trump is now facing health issues of his own. In July the White House announced that he had a medical checkup after noticing “mild swelling” in his lower legs and was found to have a condition common in older adults that causes blood to pool in his veins.
Photos also showed bruising on the back of Trump’s hand, covered by makeup that was not an exact match to his skin tone. This week he has been sporting bandages on his right hand. On Thursday White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said they were the result of the president “constantly shaking hands”.
Meanwhile Trump admitted that he had “no idea” what part of his body had been the subject of a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan in October. The White House subsequently said he had MRI imaging on his heart and abdomen in October as part of a preventative screening for men his age and the result was “perfectly normal”.
Perhaps most striking, on more than one occasion lately Trump has appeared to be fighting sleep. In the Oval Office and at a cabinet meeting his eyelids could be seen drooping, even as cabinet secretaries showered him with praise.
Critics say that Trump’s rambling, repetitive speeches and social media posts are further evidence of cognitive decline since they often shoot from topic to topic with bizarre non sequiturs. However, like the gaffe-prone Biden before him, it is not always clear what can be attributed to age and what to his essential character.
Reed Galen, president of the Union, a pro-democracy coalition, said: “He’s older, he’s worse, but I don’t know that should surprise any of us at this point. Whereas Biden got older and got quieter, Trump gets older and gets louder – when he’s awake.”
As Trump’s second term wears on, the scrutiny is only likely to intensify. A New York Times analysis of his schedule found that he has fewer public events and is traveling domestically far less than he did by this point during his first year in office, in 2017, although he is going on more overseas trips.
The president responded on social media that he was history’s hardest-working president with a lengthy list of accomplishments. He said he went out of his way to do “long, thorough and very boring” medical examinations, including three cognitive tests that he “ACED”.
He added: “The New York Times, and some others, like to pretend that I am ‘slowing up,’ and maybe not as sharp as I once was, or am in poor physical health, knowing that it is not true.”
The health of US presidents has long been a delicate and sometimes thorny issue between the White House and the press. Bardella, a former Republican congressional staffer who switched to the Democrats, said: “Donald Trump and Republicans are going to be held to the same standard that they set for Biden.
“You don’t get to challenge the media constantly and accuse the media of covering up Biden’s health and mental deterioration, and then turn around with someone who is certainly manifesting signs of old age and be bewildered that the same media that you ginned up and lectured and chastised and sued is now doing the same thing to you.”
Both presidents began their terms like men in a hurry. Biden, inheriting the Covid pandemic, sought to turn a crisis into an opportunity with a blitz of executive orders and the $1.9tn American Rescue Plan, following up with ambitious legislation on infrastructure, semiconductor manufacturing and the most substantial climate and clean energy investment in history.
But from mid-2021 inflation surged, reaching a 40-year high for reasons including pandemic supply-chain disruption, stimulus-driven demand, global energy volatility and the war in Ukraine. Although the administration eventually brought inflation back down to around 3%, it struggled to sell a message in the court of public opinion.
In a 2023 address in Chicago, Biden insisted: “Bidenomics is working … Today, the US has had the highest economic growth rate, leading the world economies since the pandemic.” But by August 2023 just 36% of Americans approved of his handling of the economy, according to a poll by the Associated Press-Norc Center for Public Affairs Research. In 2024 fact checkers found Biden guilty of making false claims about inflation.
Now the shoe is on the other foot. The cost of living was a top voter concern in the 2024 presidential election and again in last month’s races for governor of New Jersey and Virginia and mayor of New York, where Democrats swept the board.
Government data shows that job growth has slowed during Trump’s second term, unemployment has risen to its highest level in four years and consumer prices remain high, due in part to his sweeping tariffs. He is accused of not paying sufficient attention to voters who say they are struggling to make ends meet.
His 90-minute speech on Tuesday veered into attacks on the word “affordability”, which Trump derided as a “hoax” by Democrats to exaggerate the cost of living. While he did acknowledge that prices were high, he insisted the economy was booming and people were taking home more pay.
Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, posted on social media that Trump spent his speech “telling Pennsylvanians not to believe what they can see with their own two eyes – the skyrocketing cost of living and rising prices at the grocery store”. It was precisely the kind of charge that Republicans used to level against Biden.
Bardella commented: “Just as many Republicans – rightfully so in my opinion – mocked Biden and his team and Democrats for the Bidenomics vocabulary, for the ‘I know you feel like the economy is tough but whatever … ,’ here Trump is also facing a very sceptical electorate that doesn’t feel like the economy is working for them.
“It’s incredibly ironic that, for the better part of this decade, we’re looking at two presidents pushing 80 trying to convince the American people that they have a better pulse on their economic situation than than they do.”
Trump’s approval rating edged up to 41% in a new Reuters/Ipsos poll as he reversed some tariffs on food imports and spoke more about combating inflation. But the approval rating on his performance on the cost of living was just 31%. His chief of staff Susie Wiles has said she wants him to “campaign like it’s 2024 again” to help turn out his supporters for congressional midterm elections in November.
Some observers suspect that he will walk into the same messaging trap that Biden did. Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, said: “One of the oddest political dynamics we’re seeing today is that Donald Trump appears to be repeating Joe Biden’s mistake and underestimating the potency of inflation and the difficulty in affording the basics in life.
“This idea that Donald Trump can give a few speeches and this is going to make a dent in what polls show to be the number one issue in the minds of Americans is foolish. The political consequences for Donald Trump are going to be similar to what they were for Joe Biden, which is potentially quite significant losses in midterm elections and a crippling of the Republican party, perhaps in 2028.”
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