Biden, 80, prepares to announce re-election bid

US President Joe Biden says he has decided to run for a second term and would formally announce his re-election campaign "relatively soon,” despite the fact that many Americans say he is too old to run for another term in office.

"We'll announce it relatively soon. But the trip here just reinforced my sense of optimism about what can be done," Biden told reporters on Friday at the tail-end of an emotional trip to Ireland. "I told you my plan is to run again."

This is while according to a Yahoo News/YouGov poll released last month, nearly 7 in 10 registered voters said the 80-year-old president is “too old for another term.”

Sixty-eight percent of the registered voters said Biden is passed the age for another term. Also, nearly fifty percent of the Democrats who took part in the poll agreed that Biden’s old age was a serious problem. That’s more than only thirty-eight percent of the Democrats who disagreed.

Already Biden is the oldest president in US history and he would be 86 by the end of his second term if he were to win reelection in 2024.

Biden's age makes his re-election bid a historic and risky gamble for the Democratic Party, which faces a tough election map to hold the Senate in 2024 and is the minority in the House of Representatives now.

Despite his advanced age, Biden’s close aides and allies have already begun putting the steps in place to stand up a campaign infrastructure and fundraising apparatus ahead of a 2024 bid that could be a re-run of the 2020 match-up with former Republican president Donald Trump, who has already launched his campaign.

A previous poll conducted in December had found almost 60 percent of registered voters in the US expressing serious concerns about Biden’s mental fitness, citing frequent instances in which Biden had appeared to be completely disoriented in public.

Biden referred to Cambodia as "Colombia" at an international summit in Phnom Penh led by Southeast Asian leaders in November. The gaffe furthered concerns that the aged politician was suffering from a cognitive disorder.

An American political analyst warned that it is very dangerous that a man with “serious disturbances in cognition” has his hand on the nuclear button and could turn the world into “a radioactive ash heap of history.”

“I think you have to consider seriously having a review, under the 25th Amendment, of the competence of Biden to continue to hold the office,” New-York based journalist Don DeBar said, referring to the amendment of the US Constitution which deals with situations where the president or vice-president are unable to fulfill the duties of the office.

“It's quite another to demonstrate a failing memory and other serious disturbances in cognition of the person with his hand on the nuclear button,” the analyst warned.

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Trump has suggested that Biden cannot pass a cognitive test. The Montreal Cognitive Assessment is aimed at detecting mild cognitive impairments such as dementia.

Former US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley has suggested that aged politicians in the American government should undergo a "cognitive test."

Haley quoted instances suggesting Biden was not completely aware of everything going on in his administration, such as the fallout with France after his administration had pushed Paris aside last year and signed a lucrative multi-billion nuclear deal with Australia for submarines. France accused Biden of stabbing it in the back and acting like his predecessor Trump.

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