Should he win reelection and complete his full second term, President Trump will surpass Ronald Reagan as the oldest person to ever hold the office. But Trump’s age is hardly ever talked about, because leading Democrats Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders would be older than Reagan at the start of their presidencies.
As medical science improves and life expectancy increases, more and more candidates may be willing to test the limits of age. And there’s nothing in the law that prevents them from running and winning. While one could argue that it should ultimately be up to the voters to decide whether somebody is fit to serve, there are clear issues with this test.
One is that the U.S. Constitution set the minimum age to be president at 35. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the most influential voices in her party, is unable to join the two dozen other candidates seeking the party’s nomination. Even if Democratic primary voters wanted to support her, they could not. So if she can’t run simply because she’s too young, is it stripping Americans of any more of a choice by saying they can not vote for somebody who would be in their 80s during a first term?
The second issue is that even if they wanted to, there’s a lack of objective information available for voters to determine whether somebody is physically and mentally unfit to serve out a term in office. Candidates are not required to submit medical information, and both Trump (with his ridiculous doctor’s note) and Hillary Clinton (with her pneumonia cover-up) were opaque about their health in 2016.
So, one other solution short of age limits would be to require a more specific set of medical information from candidates for office.
There also may need to be a more specific explanation, with measurable health metrics, of the circumstances under which the 25th Amendment can be invoked. Section 4 of the amendment reads, “Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.” But that is incredibly open-ended and subject to interpretation.
None of these (age limits, medical disclosure requirements, revisiting the 25th Amendment) might really be a workable solution. But given that it’s becoming more common for elderly candidates to run for president, we should be thinking about the problem in a serious matter. Even if a candidate looks vigorous on the campaign trail, a lot can happen within four years in a demanding job, and, in general, somebody in their 80s is going to be at a significantly greater risk of having some sort of adverse physical or mental health decline within that period. This should be a serious part of our political discourse at a time when so many elderly candidates are seeking office.
