ANNOUNCER: It’s You Earned This, the Social Security and Medicare podcast, brought to you by the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, and now your host, Walter Gottlieb.
HOST: Last week, we were having a great discussion with S. Jay Olshansky, a demographer from the University of Illinois at Chicago, whose specialty is aging and ageism. And he had so much good content, so much to say, that we ran out of time last time. So we would like to pick up where we left off with Jay and complete a very interesting discussion about ageism in America and about its impact on our politics.
HOST: We are very concerned here at the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare to see age weaponized in such a way in this impending 2024 campaign. Biden also tries to deflect it by making some clever jokes, which are effective. But still, it’s cries of, he’s old, he’s too old, he’s demented, he’s losing it, he’s slowed down, none of which I think really have much basis in fact. But the worst offender, of course, is Nikki Haley, who has really weaponized, you talk about weaponizing, she’s really weaponized this issue.
HOST: And she was out today, the day that you and I are recording this podcast in late December with a video where she just comes out and says, Biden’s too old. Let’s take a listen.
NIKKI HALEY: I’ll just say it, Biden’s too old. And Congress is the most exclusive nursing home in America. Washington keeps failing because politicians from yesterday can’t lead us into tomorrow.
HOST: On one hand, we can remember John F. Kennedy making a case for passing the torch to a new generation of leadership. But why does this Nikki Haley garbage go so far beyond that?
GUEST: Because she’s in her 50s. She can do it because she’s several decades away from the president. She’s several decades away from the former president. By the way, she reverses the same story on Vivek Ramaswamy, where she says, yeah, you’re too young and inexperienced to be president. So she’s considering herself right in the sweet spot of someone in their 50s. So I’m not surprised by this at all.
GUEST: She’s, you know, perhaps using it as a way to get obviously to get votes because she’s echoing some of the views that we see among some people out there that Biden is too old. But you have to realize that most people that are out there commenting on this haven’t really looked at the medical records of Joe Biden or Donald Trump. We have, my colleagues and I, including board certified geriatricians, have looked at the medical records in detail that are publicly available. And have come to the conclusion that there are no significant issues.
GUEST: Look, he can’t walk as well as he used to. He has the usual problem of stuttering, which he’s had his whole life. He’s not wearing makeup and he’s not wearing, you know, special hair color like former President Trump. So Trump is benefiting from hair and makeup. Biden isn’t bothering with that. Yeah. I mean, look, are you going to not vote for somebody because they can’t walk as well as they used to? We used to have a president that was in a wheelchair. Who cares? These should be completely irrelevant issues.
GUEST: The relevant issues are what are the policies that they’re bringing to the table? No one should care about the age of the individual that’s bringing these policies to the table. You could bring good ideas at the age of 80 and you could bring bad ideas at the age of 50.
HOST: That’s for sure. The president in a wheelchair was Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was the father of the founder of our organization. By the way, of course, there was no television then and he wasn’t always seen publicly in his wheelchair. I wonder how that would go down today. I want to ask you or just complain to you, kvetch to you for a minute, if I may use the Yiddish, that a lot of people in my life will just say on social media or in person, Biden has dementia. He has dementia. I’m like, OK.
HOST: How would you like to try to negotiate a complex ceasefire and hostage exchange with Israel and Qatar and Hamas? How would you like to keep up with his daily schedule and all his responsibilities? How is it credible to say he has dementia?
GUEST: It’s not. There are a lot of armchair gerontologists out there that see what they want to see. Their vision is clouded by political views, no doubt. Some people do see an older man. Look, you can’t deny the fact that he’s an older man. I just don’t see that as a negative. Now, some people just see someone his age who is indeed moving more slowly in a negative light. And they may be interpreting his speech pattern as something that’s associated with dementia.
GUEST: But look, in his medical records, his own physicians have not ordered the tests that you would ordinarily order if they were suspected some sort of cognitive functioning problems. They just haven’t ordered them. If they did, that would be a signal that there may be some sort of problems with cognitive functioning. To our knowledge, they have never been ordered. They certainly have not been reported if they were ordered. So we have no evidence whatsoever. So those views are not based on anything other than perhaps what they want to see.
HOST: So how is it ridiculous, which it is, that somebody would say an 81 year old man is flat out not qualified to be president or serve a second term? Why is that a ridiculous standard to use?
GUEST: Well, there’s no reason why somebody 81 can’t be president of a university, the president of the United States, a well-known financial advisor. The number of trips around the sun is not a qualifying factor that influences your qualification for anything. It should be completely irrelevant. I mean, now we’re talking classic ageism where people are drawing conclusions about individuals based on the number of trips around the sun. Yeah, you can have somebody who’s 80 who’s biologically 50 and somebody who’s 50 who’s biologically 80.
GUEST: So it’s a ridiculous argument to suggest that just because Biden is 81, that he’s not qualified. That is crazy.
HOST: I wish that more people could see firsthand what we’ve seen. I had the pleasure of going to the White House when he awarded or recognized the University of Connecticut basketball team for winning the NCAA championship. President Biden stood on the stage with no note cards and he looked at the team and recapped their entire season. Like, remember that game where you beat them, you know, 96 to 21? That was amazing. You got a rebound. You were great in the paint, whatever. Like, how could you do that if you were not mentally competent?
GUEST: Yeah, well, look, you know, like I said, there’s no evidence that there is a problem with mental competency. There’s no evidence that he’s got any sort of significant memory issues. If you put the spotlight of the media on any one of us, whether you are a CEO of a company or you’re a graduate student at a university and you follow us around 24-7, I guarantee you, your language is going to be filled with mistakes. You’re going to trip. You’re going to fall over things. Guess what? It happens to all of us, regardless of how old we are.
GUEST: I would think that the vast majority of the population would be incapable of holding the schedule that President Biden holds on a daily basis and under a spotlight added to that. So I would challenge anyone who makes this claim that there’s any sort of cognitive issue associated with President Biden to follow his schedule for a day and see how long they last. I don’t think they would last a single day.
HOST: I would like to get into Congress for just a minute because Nikki Haley called it a nursing home. And then we think about some of our most formidable, powerful lawmakers in the past 40 years, 50 years, House Speaker Tip O’Neill retired in his mid-70s, powerhouse Michigan Congressman John Dingell stepped down at 87. John Glenn served until he was 77 and flew on the space shuttle that same year. So what is she talking about?
GUEST: She’s talking about prejudice against people that are older. Now guess what? She’s headed in the same direction. She’s going to be there herself in a couple of decades and my guess is she’s going to look back and she’s going to go, well, I don’t know if she’ll admit that she made a mistake, but when she gets there, she probably will realize internally that she had made a mistake and guess what? She will have made the journey, she’ll look around and she’ll go, wow, it’s not so bad after all. I’m not really having any problems and guess what?
GUEST: I’m a lot wiser and smarter and experienced today in my 80s than I was in my 50s. She’ll realize it once she gets out there. Look, let me just tell you, one of the games that I play is poker, Texas Hold’em poker, and I often play with younger people and I have a huge advantage over them. It’s the experience that I bring to the table. I actually like it when I get to about three or four in the morning and these young kids are falling asleep and my level of intensity, my cognitive functioning is operating at an extremely high level.
GUEST: I have a huge advantage over these younger folks because I am older. I think it should be the cloak that the president wears or that these older individuals wear. It’s their cloak of power that they have. I’m waiting for an X-Men story where one of the heroes is an older individual that uses his or her intellect as the basis for their power because that indeed, I think, is the power that the president has and some of these older individuals have and it’s just not understood or appreciated. What you’re seeing from Nikki Haley is weaponization.
HOST: Well, I appreciate the poker analogy and I can tell you, I am never playing Texas Hold’em with you, my friend. I’m going to lose my frickin’ shirt. Is it any consolation to you that there’s now a Golden Bachelor series?
GUEST: You know what? I watched one episode and I’ve heard from some of my friends that the reason why they liked it, and many of my friends are my age, by the way, which is roughly the age of the Golden Bachelor, is that many of the goals and aspirations that younger people have are present in older individuals and I think that that was the message of that show was that here you had somebody in his 70s and the women were in their 70s, roughly the same age, and it was like watching a bunch of teenagers battling against each other. I did get a kick out of it.
GUEST: So I think the message is fairly straightforward and that is it doesn’t matter how old you are. You have many of the same goals and aspirations that you did when you were younger, the same desires when you were younger and none of that changes. Of course, what’s now different is you’re now older, you’re wiser, you’re more comfortable in your own skin, you’re wealthier than you were when you were younger, you’re more highly educated.
GUEST: There are all of these huge advantages that these individuals, Golden Bachelors, have that they didn’t have when they were younger. You know, most people, if you ask them when they’re older, would you like to go back to your teenage years? They shake their head no.
HOST: Oh, hell no. Hell no. Junior high school? Forget it. Dodgeball. And by the way, for that eloquent testimonial you gave for the Golden Bachelor, you are going to get the last rose tonight, Jay Olshansky. Anyway, we’re out of time. I guess we just want to agree that in 2024, we want to continue to combat all isms, racism, sexism, ableism, but also ageism and strive for greater tolerance. Jay, this has been a pleasure. You have so many interesting insights. Thank you so much.
GUEST: Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
HOST: And if you’d like to join us in the fight for American seniors’ well-being, become a member of the National Committee today. Visit ncpssm.org. That’s ncpssm.org. Once you’re on the website, you can also subscribe to our daily newsletter, Your Morning Read. And remember, you earned this.
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