The NPR Politics Podcast - Old Politicians

Episode Date: August 8, 2023

President Biden is the oldest U.S. president ever at 80. Donald Trump is 77. Congress is as old as it has ever been. How did we get here and how does it shape our politics?This episode: voting correspondent Miles Parks, political correspondent Kelsey Snell, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.The podcast is produced by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting. I'm Kelsey Snell. I cover politics. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And today we are talking about age. President Biden is the oldest president in U.S. history at 80 years old.

Donald Trump is 77. The median age of a U.S. history at 80 years old. Donald Trump is 77. The median age of a U.S. senator is 65 years old. And there are four senators, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who are over 80. For a member of the U.S. House, the median age is a little younger at 58 years old. But the typical age of an American is under 40 years old. So Kelsey, what's going on here? Is this a new thing that our government is much older than the average population? Well, it's not really a new thing. The new thing here really is that people are living longer and people are staying in office until their late 80s. But people have stayed in office

for a long time in government for a long time. So a couple of things are happening here. One is that the country is becoming more polarized, particularly when you're looking at house races. A lot of the decisions about who will eventually become the representative in a congressional district are decided at the primary level. The person who wins a primary in a heavily Republican district will probably wind up being the Republican representative from that district. And, you know, parties tend to not want to uproot people who have been representing them for a long time. Another thing is that voters really do seem to like people with experience.

It came up in the studies that I was reading for this reporting over and over is that there is a sense that an older person has more life experience and might be better at doing the job of representing thousands or millions of people. Another thing is that there is a true advantage to being an incumbent. There are lots and lots of ways where it makes it easier to be reelected than it is to run for election the very first time. So there are kind of layers happening here. We do have a fairly significant increasing age situation in Congress and in the presidency. I mean, Biden is the oldest person to ever serve as president.

And it's not like he's 69 or 70 years old, like we were talking about when Ronald Reagan was there in the 1980s, and people were talking about his mental acuity, although it was revealed later that he was suffering from some earlier stages of Alzheimer's, not quite the same with President Biden, despite the fact that you have conservative media lining up to say that he's senile, he doesn't know where he is, etc, etc. Frankly, I think all of that kind of conversation just serves to potentially lower the bar for any kind of debate that comes up. And if Biden is able to kind of, you know, string sentences together and appear to be on top of things, then he seems to quote unquote, win a debate. But, you know, string sentences together and appear to be on top of things, then he seems to, quote,

unquote, win a debate. But, you know, this is a serious concern for a lot of people. You know, when we polled about this, almost two thirds of Americans said that Biden's mental fitness to serve was a serious concern, not one to be dismissed, including almost four in 10 Democrats. I should say that Domenico is right that while this may not be a new phenomenon, having an older representation than necessarily is reflected in the average age of the public. There are a lot of older members of Congress. I think we have seen the oldest Congress in history. Again, some of that is about life expectancy, but we also are seeing a lot of older people in leadership. So it is actually a very real thing. This is not just something people are imagining. Well, this is what I'm trying to understand, because I feel like that poll you mentioned, Domenico, I feel poll numbers come out every week. It feels like where

voters are saying that they are concerned about the age of the politicians in office. And at the same time, voters keep voting for these people. And so do we have any sense, Kelsey, on how much voters actually care about this as an issue that they will vote based on? Yeah, I spoke with Jennifer Wolak. She is a professor at Michigan State University, and she's been studying that question exactly. And she and her co-author did a couple of different experiments and studied existing voter data. And they basically found that people don't really worry that much about age when they actually go to vote. She said that people generally don't discriminate one way or another. They do tend to occasionally, she refers to it as punishing the

older candidate, but it's about by two points at the very most. So she said the difference between a 30-year-old member of Congress and an 80-year-old member of Congress when it comes to approval ratings is a difference of about two points. And it was a slight penalty for being older in that context, but it was very small. Yeah. And I was going to say that even in the survey that we did, we saw Biden's approval rating tick up in that survey from the previous month. So, you know, yes, this is a concern. They say it's a serious issue, a serious concern.

But it doesn't mean it's the most important issue for a lot of people. You know, at the end of the day, our elections are largely binary and people are going to make a choice between who they most agree with. And when you think about former President Trump, he's not much younger than President Biden currently, 77 years old. He maybe presents himself in a bit more energetic of a way. The camera's not exactly trained on him every day. And he has a certain sort of style that people sort of expect some, you know, maybe irrationality in the way that he talks about certain things. But when you look at Trump and his sort of, you know, the repelling effect that he has on some in the middle and on the left, you know, those people on the left and the people in the middle who might have some concerns about

Biden are also saying they'd rather vote for Biden than for Trump. Kelsey, are there practical effects in Congress, for instance, to having an aging government body? Yeah, and there are a lot of different ways that this presents itself. One is that it has kind of empowered staffers in a pretty significant way. I've spoken just kind of off the record and just chatting with staff about how if there is an older member of Congress who maybe doesn't have the physical capability to keep up or in some cases the mental acuity, the staff does become more empowered. That's not necessarily a negative thing, but it is an outcome. Another thing that is very easy to see is the way that the ranks of potential future leaders has kind of deteriorated. And I think people most often point to House Democrats when they're thinking about this, because Nancy Pelosi, who is

now no longer in leadership, and the rest of this kind of cohort of longtime leaders had stayed in those positions for so long that people who were generally thought of as the kind of the up and coming leadership of the party left. I'm thinking about Chris Van Hollen, who is now a senator from Maryland. I'm thinking about Javier Becerra, who left. He was thought to be a potential successor for Pelosi. So those are kind of the two major consequences that people think about right off the top of their heads. But there's also policy issues where I think a lot of people can remember senators in particular asking super off base or unrelated questions about some new technology or AI or understanding the internet and it makes them look out of touch. And in some cases, they can be out of touch with the way the

world is changing. Yeah, those tech hearings really shone a light on the fact that a lot of these folks in their older ages, I mean, the technology has moved so quickly, they really just didn't have a grasp of the subject matter. And I think that that made a lot of people think about what would be the best age for somebody to be president or to serve in Congress, for example. Pew Research Center actually asked what people thought would be the ideal age of a president. And about half of Americans said that they preferred someone in their 50s. They thought that that was a good, you know, sort of sweet spot

for someone with experience, but not so old that they felt like that they were having, you know, declining mental capabilities. Another quarter said that it's best for a president to be in their 60s. So Americans do seem to prefer, three quarters of Americans seem to prefer at least people 50 or over. Is there any political appetite at all for any sort of age limit for any of these offices? No, not at this moment. And I think one of the things that is definitely worth pointing out is that a lot of people who oppose that and also oppose things like term limits say that age doesn't necessarily indicate that somebody is going to have mental acuity issues. It doesn't necessarily indicate that somebody will be unable to do the job. And making those assumptions in federal policy really doesn't seem like the direction anybody is going right now.

All right. Well, let's leave it there for just a second, and we'll be right back. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Autograph Collection Hotels, offering over 300 independent hotels around the world, each exactly like nothing else. Hand-selected for their inherent craft, each hotel tells its own unique story through distinctive design and immersive experiences, from medieval falconry to volcanic wine tasting. Autograph Collection is part of the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio of over 30 hotel brands around the world. Find the unforgettable at AutographCollection.com. And we're back. And we should acknowledge that one of the reasons we're talking about this right

now at all is because of some high-profile health issues with members of Congress. There have been concerns with California Democrat Dianne Feinstein. She was away from Congress for a number of months battling shingles, and there have been a number of reports about her mental and physical health in recent months. And then Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, he froze up during a press conference and appeared unable to speak for a number of seconds. Kelsey, how have both of those incidents affected this debate? Yeah, when in the instance of Dianne Feinstein, I think the direct impact was a little bit clearer because her absence was having a clear impact and was

making it hard for Democrats to move forward with the nomination of a number of judges. With McConnell, it's a little bit less direct. But there are a lot of questions about how somebody who is in ailing health, I mean, he had a fall. He is recovering from injuries from an incident that happened some months ago and appears to be having lingering effects from it. There are questions of how he can be leading Senate Republicans in a moment when the Senate is so closely divided and there's some really serious differences happening within the Republican Party. I can think about the hold Senator Tommy Tuberville has on all of these military promotions and appointments that, you know, there are some serious, serious concerns

in the federal government about what will happen within the military ranks if this is not resolved. So, Domenico, I mean, how does this work in terms of once somebody is elected, it's basically their decision on whether they are healthy enough to serve, or how does this work exactly? Yeah, well, you know, not exactly, right? I mean, this is about voters. And if voters continue to elect incumbents, and we can talk about all of the advantages of incumbency, you know, high name recognition, people are used to voting for people that whose names they know. But it's up to people to pay attention. You know, if you think that you're, that you need some new blood in Congress, or you don't think that the person who is at an older

age isn't doing a good job, then they should vote them out. Just like, you know, somebody who might be younger, obviously, and has maybe some other issues or challenges. You know, you really can't put it entirely on the person who wants to run for re-election, thinks they can still do the job. And in many cases, they can do the job quite effectively and have the experience to do so and have chairmanships to be able to help their constituencies. Now, if you're in between terms, then yes, it is up to the person. You might have people talking to them, asking them maybe that they might want to have a change or spend more time with their family, as people like to say. I can tell you if I'm 80, I really hope I'm not still doing this. That's what all the younger politicians say. I mean, you know, I hope to be on a beach somewhere or reading and just kind of chilling out, right? But you know, I mean, yeah, at the end of the day, it's up to voters to decide.

I think Domenico gets to two really important points there. One is he mentions chairmanships, and that's not something that we've talked about here. Being in Congress for a long time does come with benefits. It means that you have accumulated knowledge, understanding, expertise, and an ability to influence other people, relationships, all stuff that comes with time. So it's not necessarily always a bad thing to serve for a longer period of time. The other thing that he brings up that I think is important for us to revisit is, yes, a lot of this is being decided in primaries, but if anything, that is kind of a reason to talk about the involvement in primaries and the importance of primaries and people getting engaged at that level and not just in a general election. Do you guys think this is going to be a thing we're talking about next year as the

presidential election heats up? Oh, heck yes. I mean, I think it's a reason we're talking about it right now. People do have serious concerns. It is kind of odd as a situation to have, if it is, you know, President Biden, who says he's running for reelection, and as long as he's healthy, there's no reason to think he won't be, you know, that he'd be running at the advanced stage he's at. And, you know, if it is Trump who gets through the Republican primary, and there's lots of time left with a lot of early states to vote, that he would be running as well. I mean, two people at, you know, the combined age of 157 would be running for the White House. So yeah, it's going to be a principal front and center issue. But it doesn't necessarily mean it's the thing people are going to vote on.

Well, I mean, is this just the new normal? People are living longer over the next few years. So we just expect that politicians are going to keep getting older? I mean, to some extent, but I do think we are going to see a sea change coming. I mean, I think that Biden and Trump are sort of a finger in the dam of some of this because they're so well known, they're so recognizable, they have such high name ID. But if it is the two of them running in this general election, we're going to have an open presidential seat in 2028. You know, if Democrats take back control of the House, for example, in the next presidential election, you're looking at Hakeem Jeffries becoming the potential next Speaker of the House, much younger than Nancy Pelosi, right, when she was Speaker of the House. So I think we actually are going to see quite the sea change coming, especially starting in 2028.

No, and that's a very good point. I mentioned earlier the advanced age of the former leadership ranks and Democrats, but they're not leaders anymore. And there is a fresh new crop of people who are moving up the ranks. So we have a lot to watch in the coming years. All right. Well, let's leave it there for now. I'm sure we're going to be having this conversation a number of times over the next year, year and a half. No one is getting any younger. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting.

I'm Kelsey Snell. I cover politics. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. Like my emphasis on senior there. Yeah, I was like, I was like, I like that. I was into it.