ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith says he is not on the Biden 2024 bandwagon and that the nation needs a “new president.”
Smith thinks the 80-year-old Biden is sot up to the task of serving in the White House and that someone else should run for the Democrat nomination for 2024, Fox News reports.
The ESPN talker delivered his concern on Friday, the day after Joe Biden took a nasty fall during the Air Force Academy’s commencement ceremony, a fall that Biden blamed on an out-of-place sandbag.
“It’s just my personal opinion, that’s all it is. Take it for what it’s worth. Somebody’s gotta say it, so I’m going to say it. We need a new president in 2024. We need a new president,” Smith told his audience.
“Let me be very, very clear about where I’m going with this,” Smith added. “That could happen to anybody. It’s not a big deal. I’ve tripped and busted my behind on several occasions, sometimes running up the stairs. It happens. It’s not the end of the world. It’s not evidence that he’s just not all there. But he is 80. He’ll be 81 by the end of his term, approaching 82.”
I’ll say it…and I know this will make some people mad…but I just think someone 80+ years old is too old to be President.
There has to be better options pic.twitter.com/keewnqFYU0
— Stephen A Smith (@stephenasmith) June 2, 2023
Smith took pains to note that he voted for Biden in 2020 and is not calling for him to be removed from office, just that he should retire instead of running for reelection.
“Without trying to engage in any kind of ageism at all, because I don’t believe in it,” Smith noted. “There does come a point in time where there are certain jobs you don’t need. It’s not that you don’t need to be working, it’s not that you don’t need to be living your life, it’s not that you don’t need to be living a very vibrant lifestyle or anything like that, but there are responsibilities that are far, far, far more extensive than a typical 9 to 5 that somebody in their 80s may not need to be doing. I think the presidency is one of em.”
“But here’s one of my biggest reasons – and again, forget Biden for a second because this is no disrespect to him. What does it say about our country where we’re looking at an 80-year-old, who will be 82 if he wins the presidency again in 2024? What does it say about our country if that’s what we’re depending on?” He added.
US President Joe Biden is helped up after falling during the United States Air Force Academy graduation ceremony just north of Colorado Springs in El Paso County, Colorado, on June 1, 2023. (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
Smith then criticized the Democrat Party as a whole for offering candidates other than Biden who are fringe, like Marianne Williamson and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
“I mean, to the Democrats, y’all ain’t got nobody? Nobody?!”
So, who did Smith think would be unbeatable? Michelle Obama, naturally. “She’d win in a landslide,” he exclaimed.
Aside from Obama, though, Smith also said that Disney chief Bob Iger would be a good candidate.
“I just don’t believe somebody in their 80s should be running the country,” he concluded.
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