Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday that former President Donald Trump’s age, like President Biden’s is “a legitimate concern” for voters heading into the 2024 race for the White House.
DeSantis made the argument during an interview appearance on “CBS Evening News,” telling host Norah O’Donnell that he thinks the Founding Fathers would go back and add age limits for elected officials in the Constitution if they could.
“I think that’s absolutely a legitimate concern. The presidency is not a job for someone who is 80 years old,” DeSantis said when O’Donnell asked if voters should be worried about the age of each party’s front-runner in the race.
Biden, 80, is roughly three and a half years older than Trump, 77. DeSantis is 44.
“There’s nothing wrong with being 80. Obviously, I’m the governor of Florida. I know a lot of people who are elderly. They’re great people, but you’re talking about a job where you need to give it 100%,” he said. “We need an energetic president, and I think that if the Founders could kind of look at this again, I do think they probably would have put an age limit on some of these offices.”
He added that if he ended up becoming the Republican nominee and faced off against Biden as the Democrat nominee, “a lot of Americans … are going to want to see a generational passing of the torch.”