WASHINGTON, Feb 24 (Reuters) - Six in ten Americans, including a significant slice of Republicans, think President Donald Trump has become erratic as he ages, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.
The six-day poll concluded on Monday, the day before the 79-year-old president gives his annual State of the Union address to Congress following a month of angry reprimands of lawmakers and judges.
Overall, 61% of respondents in the poll said they would describe Trump as having "become erratic with age." Some 89% of Democrats, 30% of Republicans and 64% of independents described him this way.
White House spokesman Davis Ingle said the poll results were examples of "fake and desperate narratives" and that "Trump’s sharpness, unmatched energy, and historic accessibility" set him apart from his predecessor in office, Democrat Joe Biden.
Trump's overall popularity has been little changed in recent months. Some 40% of respondents in the latest poll approved of Trump's performance as president, up two percentage points from earlier this month. While he started his term with a considerably higher rating at 47%, his approval has held within a point or two of its current level since April.
Most Americans think the country's political leadership is generally too old.
Some 79% of poll respondents agreed with a statement that "elected officials in Washington, D.C., are too old to represent most Americans." The average age in the U.S. Senate is about 64, and in the U.S. House of Representatives, it's 58.
Democratic respondents were slightly more likely to call for younger politicians, with 58% of them saying top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer, 75, was too old to work in government.
Trump returned to office in January 2025 at age 78, becoming the oldest president on inauguration day in history. Since then, he has unveiled new policies and proposals at a dizzying pace, ordering sweeping tariffs on imports from dozens of countries and deploying masked federal agents across the country to crack down on unauthorized immigration.
He has often struck an angry tone in his public remarks, including last week when he said he was "absolutely ashamed" that the conservative-leaning U.S. Supreme Court struck down many of his tariffs as illegal. Trump went on to reinstate a series of new tariffs, arguing he could do so under a different legal authority. In November, he assailed Democratic lawmakers who urged members of the U.S. military to refuse any illegal orders, calling them traitors who could face execution.
Source: Drudge Report
