President Joe Biden traveled to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for what the White House referred to as his “annual physical,” though no such appointment had been publicly announced in advance, multiple outlets reported Wednesday.
Two unnamed sources described as “familiar with the plans but who were not advised to speak about them publicly” told The New York Times that the visit had been on the president’s schedule, even though it had not been announced.
“I’m going to Walter Reed to get my physical,” Biden yelled at reporters as he crossed the White House lawn to board Marine One, the helicopter that was to take him to Walter Reed.
Numerous outlets noted that the appointment came at a time when Biden’s physical and mental ability have been under increased speculation.
“[V]oters are approaching this year’s election with misgivings about Biden’s age, having scrutinized his gaffes, his coughing, his slow walking and even a tumble off his bicycle,” The Associated Press reported, for example.
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The 81-year-old president is already the oldest president to hold the office, and would be 86 at the end of a hypothetical second term, should he win in November.
The White House said it would release a “written summary” of Biden’s examination, which it described as “routine,” according to the outlet.
Fox News noted that, while every president since Richard Nixon has undergone an annual physical examination, this time around there was considerably more demand from Biden’s critics that the administration be more transparent about the president’s health, both physical and mental.
Those concerns mounted after special counsel Robert Hur released a report on his investigation into Biden’s mishandling of classified materials that concluded that prosecuting the president “would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
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Biden was reportedly furious about that description, saying at a news conference, “I am well-meaning. And I’m an elderly man. And I know what the hell I’m doing. I’ve been president – I put this country back on its feet. I don’t need his recommendation,” according to CNN.
First lady Jill Biden attempted in an interview to cast Biden’s age as an advantage, claiming that it brought with it wisdom and experience.
That argument, however, means less if former President Donald Trump is the Republican presidential nominee, as seems likely. Trump is only four years younger than the president.
Polls have shown that voters see age as a much more significant issue for Biden than Trump.
A poll last summer found that more than three-quarters of Americans thought that Biden was too old to serve a second term, while only about half of those surveyed said the same of Trump.
The New York Post, in fact, cited three more recent polls, all of which had similar results.
“An ABC News/Ipsos poll this month found 86% of US adults said Biden is too old for another term while 59% said that both Biden and Trump are too old,” according to the Post. “A New York Times poll in November found 71% of swing-state voters say Biden is “too old to be an effective president” compared to 39% who said the same of Trump. A Wall Street Journal poll released in September found that 73% of registered voters believed Biden was too old, versus 47% who said so of Trump.”
CNN noted that presidents are not required by law to release any information about their medical condition, and that medical reports “over the last several decades” have always describe the sitting president as fit for the office.
