As of Sunday, concerns about the ability to weather 79-year-old President Joe Biden’s foreign travel were among the reasons the White House decided to delay the Middle East portion of the tour. report good in The New York Times.
Biden was initially scheduled to visit Israel and Saudi Arabia last month after attending the G7 summit in Germany. But a week before leaving for Europe, the White House announced that travel to the Middle East would be postponed for scheduling reasons.
Reports at the time said the administration was still trying to finalize details about the Saudi portion of the trip. The US is working towards a deal that would transfer Egypt’s control of a pair of Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia, which would see Riyadh take steps toward normalizing ties with Israel, which has interests in those islands. With the deal still being finalised, the White House hopes to seal the deal by the time Biden descends on Friday in Jeddah to attend a summit of Middle Eastern leaders. He will be in Israel and the West Bank for two days.
But when the White House indicated that the delay had to do with factors regarding host countries, a US official told The Times that putting the oldest president in US history through a 10-day foreign trip was “crazy”. ” Would.
More than a dozen current and former U.S. officials interviewed by the NYT alike insist that the president remains intellectually engaged, regularly asking tough questions at briefings and leaving a vulnerable person buried deep in a memo late into the night. Call colleagues about the point.
The conduct contrasts with some reporting on former President Donald Trump, who was said to rarely read his intelligence reports and easily lose focus at briefings. Trump was 70 when he entered office.
But Biden’s aides also acknowledged that the president has aged in recent years and they quietly watch out for him. The president fell off his bicycle last month and has been known to stumble over words during public appearances.
Still, Biden insists he plans to run again in 2024, even if his age becomes a growing political responsibility for the Democratic Party.
