An MSNBC panel hailed President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on Thursday night, with Chris Hayes saying that concerns over Biden’s age rendering him “incapable” have been “oversold.”
“Everybody knows that this was a great speech,” anchor Nicolle Wallace said. “And everybody knows that if this is the message going into the next eight months that polls will soon reflect that.”
Wallace added, “I think taking on his age three times in the end shows not just Republicans but Democrats, he’s not afraid of defending his stature.”
Hayes noted that Biden’s address surpassed his expectations, saying that he did not expect the speech to be as “aggressive, as sharp, as much like a campaign speech.”
The MSNBC anchor noted that Biden took on Donald Trump off the bat, referring to him repeatedly as “my predecessor.”
Hayes then dug into ongoing concerns among voters over Biden’s age and whether he was fit to take on the office of the president for another four years.
“The caricature of the president of the United States has gotten so over the top in the conservative media, and I even think out in the public in the outer perimeter and the largest concentric circles of Americans who do not pay very careful attention to politics, that this guy is just like, ludicrously doddering and incapable,” Hayes said.
The anchor added that setting up low expectations for an opponent can backfire saying, “going around and being like, this guy can’t even tie his own shoes. He can’t even get up. He can’t do anything.”
“And then you see that like, wait a second. That was not what I was told,” Hayes continued. “This age thing has been oversold. That was so striking.”
