Joe Biden, Donald Trump’s verbal gaffes: How age affects our memory

United States president Joe Biden and his Republican rival Donald Trump’s many verbal slips have become a talking matter. The advanced age of both leaders who are likely set for a rematch in the upcoming US presidential elections has become a concern, with their flubs triggering questions about their cognitive abilities.

Recently, Biden jocularly addressed concerns over his age on American comedian Seth Meyers’ late-night show, saying the “other guy” (Trump) was “about as old as I am”. Taking a jab at the former US president, Biden said that Trump “can’t remember his wife’s name”.
Last month, the 77-year-old Republican called his wife, Melania, ‘Mercedes’ at a CPAC event.

As the conversation about the mental acuity of political leaders takes centre stage in the US, let’s take a look at whether verbal flubs are normal with age or a sign of cognitive decline.

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Biden and Trump’s verbal gaffes

Biden, 81, said “Mexico” instead of “Egypt” when speaking about Egyptian president Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in February while responding to a question about the ceasefire in Gaza.

A long-awaited report by the US Department of Justice on the handling of classified documents by Biden released last month stoked questions about the president’s mental health. The report described Biden as an “elderly man with a poor memory” and “diminished faculties” who “did not remember when he was vice president”, reported New York Times (NYT). It said Biden could not recall important milestones in his life such as when his son Beau died or when he served as vice president.

Biden trashed the report, saying his “memory is fine”. Several questioned the veracity of some parts of the report, particulary related to Biden’s mental health.

Before the report came out, the US president was under fire for getting the names of the leaders of France and Germany wrong.

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Biden is already the oldest American president ever. If he is re-elected for another four years later this year, the Democrat will be 86 at the time of leaving the Oval Office. An NBC poll last month found that 62 per cent of American voters had concerns that Biden does not have the mental and physical health for a second term as President.

Trump, who refers to Biden as “Sleepy Joe” — a dig at his age, has made his own gaffes while campaigning. He confused Nikki Haley, his last rival for the Republican presidential nomination, with former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat.

Haley has taken potshots at both Biden and Trump over their respective ages. “We all know 80-year-olds who can run circles around us…and then we know Trump and Biden. We need a president who has the focus and stamina to deal with all the challenges facing our country,” she wrote in a post on X in February.

Trump has also used former US president Barack Obama’s name when he clearly meant Biden. He also said last year that Biden threatened to lead the US into “World War Two”. The second war had ended in 1945.

Impact of age on memory

Memory experts say memory lapses can happen at any age and they necessarily do not signal a mental decline for many people.

“Most of us have memory slips all the time. We can’t remember where we put our car keys. We can’t remember dates or names. But we don’t really notice the mistakes when we’re young. It’s when people get older that mistakes in memory seem to have more significance. Memory lapse really is normal at every stage of life,” Earl K Miller, professor of neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told The Washington Post.

According to NPR, memory lapses become more frequent with age, even when people have “perfectly healthy” brains. Dr Sharon Sha, a clinical professor of neurology at Stanford University, told the US news outlet that the ability to not remember names temporarily “is very common as we get older”.

With age, our working memory which helps us remember a phone number or a password for some time is also affected. Processing becomes slower as we grow older, meaning people may take longer to respond to a question or take a decision.

“Trying to remember that name of the restaurant that they were in last week or the name of the person that they met for coffee, that is not in itself a sign of dementia, but it’s a sign of cognitive ageing,” Dr Zaldy Tan, who directs the Memory and Healthy Aging Program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, was quoted as saying by NPR.

Speaking to The Washington Post, Bradford Dickerson, a professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School, said the impact of age on brains is visible during speech, a high-speed activity, which requires “considerable mental juggling and swift recall”.

According to him, older brains are also vulnerable to stress, distraction and fatigue, which further affect memory recall.

Just a flub or something more?

Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia become more common for people with advanced age. However, diagnosing someone for these conditions requires a thorough history of their life and cannot be determined just by watching a few seconds of a press conference, Tan told NPR.

“It really isn’t possible to diagnose someone with a brain disorder of cognition by watching them on the campaign trail. Anyone who does so, whether a doctor or a layperson, really shouldn’t be trusted,” Andrew Budson, a professor of neurology, said to BU Today.

As Jason Shepherd, an associate professor of neurobiology at the University of Utah, told The Washington Post, “The thing I’d most like people to understand is that, yes, there is some normal cognitive decline during ageing. But it’s not a disease state. It’s part of life.”

With inputs from agencies