by “Even though we know both candidates are three and a half years apart, one side seems to have the difference a little bit more, and that’s going to be a concern,” said Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis.
Part of this comes down to basic physical differences.
Biden’s voice has become softer and huskier, his hair finer and whiter. He is tall and thin, but moves more cautiously than as a candidate in 2019 and 2020, and often keeps his upper body rigid, increasing the impression of fragility. And he has had spills in front of the public: falling off a bicycle, tripping over a sandbag.
Trump, on the other hand, does not seem to be suffering the effects of time as visibly. Trump often dyes his hair and appears unnaturally tanned. He is tall and burly, and uses his physicality to project strength in front of the crowd. When he takes the stage at rallies, he basks in the adulation for several minutes, dances to an opening song, and then delivers speeches filled with macho rhetoric and bombast that typically last more than an hour, a show of endurance.
“It’s the perception of how you communicate,” said Carol Kinsey Goman, speaker and leadership presence coach. “When Trump makes those kinds of missteps, he just ignores it and people don’t say, ‘Oh, he’s getting older.’ He makes at least as many mistakes as Joe Biden, but because he does it with this bravery, he doesn’t look like senility. It seems like passion.”
With Biden, Goman said, “it looks like weakness.”
It is difficult to go beyond public perception to compare the physical health of the two men. Democrats and some Republicans have said Biden is holding firm in private conversations. Biden and Trump have released limited medical information. Nearly a year ago, the White House released a letter from Biden’s longtime doctor describing him as a “healthy and vigorous 80-year-old man” after a physical examination. The White House has not made its doctors available to journalists. In November, Trump released a vague health report that described his condition as “excellent.”
