Biden uses humor to try to defuse concerns about his age

WASHINGTON — Joe Biden served in the Senate for 270 years. He used to be three years older than his sister Valerie, but now has 20 years on her. And the fourth U.S. president — whom Biden affectionally calls “Jimmy” Madison — is a good friend.

All kidding aside, the 80-year-old Biden will tell you, he is at the end of his career, not the beginning. He’s been doing this for a long time. And he’s gotten a “hell of a lot of wisdom” over those years, making him deserving of a second term.

As Biden, the oldest president in U.S. history, embarks on his reelection campaign, he is increasingly musing aloud about his advanced age, cracking self-deprecating jokes and framing his decades in public life as a plus, hoping to convince voters his age is an asset rather than a vulnerability.

In short, he’s trying to own it.

“I stand here humbled being the first sitting president of the United States to have an opportunity to speak at Ebenezer Sunday service,” Biden said in January at the historic Atlanta church where Martin Luther King, Jr. was the co-pastor. “You’ve been around for 136 years. I know I look like it, but I haven’t.”

The octogenarian president’s comments about his age can be serious, woven into broader remarks and often used to underscore a broader point.

When Biden told the Irish parliament last month that he has never been more optimistic about the future, he notably added, “And I’m at the end of my career, not the beginning.”

“The only thing I bring to this career after my age — as you can see how old I am — but is a little bit of wisdom,” Biden continued to the approving crowd. “I come to the job with more experience than any president in American history. It doesn’t make me better or worse, but it gives me few excuses.”

Other times, Biden — his mood buoyed by a crowd full of supporters, whether among Democratic lawmakers or at a lively union hall — is often speaking off-the-cuff, eager to make the audience laugh by poking a little fun at himself.