When Joseph R. Biden Jr. takes the oath of workplace on Wednesday, he will likely be the oldest individual ever sworn in as president. Mr. Biden turned 78 in November.
During the marketing campaign, Mr. Biden addressed his age head-on in interviews and offered himself as a “transition candidate” who would assist nurture new Democratic expertise.
“It’s a legitimate question to ask about my age,” Mr. Biden said on “The View,” including, “Hopefully, I can demonstrate not only with age has come wisdom and experience that can make things a lot better.”
Mr. Biden leveraged his age as a energy in the election and campaigned on two key messages, in accordance to one historic professional.
“The first one: ‘I am not him,’ meaning Trump,” Jeffrey A. Engel, director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, stated on Wednesday. “The second was, ‘I am an adult and I will bring back normalcy and I will bring back a sense of decency and demonstrate maturity.’”
Here is a take a look at a few of the oldest and youngest presidents to take workplace.
Who have been the oldest presidents?
Until Mr. Biden is sworn in on Wednesday, President Trump holds the document for the nation’s oldest chief govt. He was 70 in January 2017, when he turned the forty fifth president.
Before him, President Ronald Reagan was the oldest president. He was 69 in 1981 when he was inaugurated for his first time period.
In a debate with Walter Mondale throughout his 1984 re-election marketing campaign, Mr. Reagan made mild of the concern of age.
“I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign,” he stated. “I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”
Mr. Reagan was 77 after his second time period, the oldest president to depart workplace.
More than a century earlier than him, William Henry Harrison held the distinction of being the oldest president at the time, when he was inaugurated in 1841 at age 68. Mr. Harrison, who had caught a chilly that developed into pneumonia, died after 32 days in office. He turned the first president to die in workplace and to date, has served the shortest tenure in U.S. presidential historical past.
At 96, Jimmy Carter is the oldest dwelling former president.
Who have been the youngest presidents?
Many folks might imagine John F. Kennedy, who was inaugurated in 1961 at age 43, was the youngest president. But that distinction belongs to Theodore Roosevelt, who was 42 in September 1901, when he assumed the presidency after the assassination of William McKinley.
“I don’t think most Americans have ever seen a moving picture of Teddy Roosevelt and not, certainly, while he was president,” Professor Engel stated, explaining why folks might consider Kennedy as the youngest American president. “They don’t have a mental image of a young man in the White House at that age, whereas John F. Kennedy was all about the image and moving images.”
Other youthful presidents embody Ulysses S. Grant, who was 46 when he took workplace in 1869; Bill Clinton, who was additionally 46 at his first inauguration, in 1993; and Barack Obama, who was 47 at his first inauguration in 2009. Three of the 5 youngest presidents have been Democrats; Roosevelt and Grant have been Republicans.
What are the necessities to be president?
As dictated by the United States Constitution, the president should be a natural-born citizen of the United States, at the very least 35 years outdated and a resident of 14 years.
The {qualifications} for president haven’t modified since George Washington first took workplace at 57 in 1789, in accordance to the Library of Congress. He was sworn in on the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York City, then the capital of the United States.
The common age of a president at inauguration: 55
A 2011 JAMA article on presidential growing old, which didn’t embody Mr. Trump, noticed that the common age of a U.S. president at inauguration was 55.1 years.
An analogous rating discovered that on common, presidents are sworn in at 55, in accordance to potus.com, a venture created by Bob Summers in 1996 as a part of a graduate faculty venture at the University of Michigan School of Information.
“Most of the people that become president usually need to build a body of work to prove to voters what they stand for and how they will get things done,” Mr. Summers stated.
“That usually precludes much younger presidents,” he added. “And with the shorter life expectancies in the early days of the U.S., there were not as many people who would run as older candidates.”
How many father-son pairs have taken workplace?
There have been two father-and-son units of presidents, and each have been related in age after they every first took workplace.
John Adams was 61 when he turned the second president, in 1797. His son John Quincy Adams was sworn in as the sixth president at 57 in 1825.
George Bush was 64 at his inauguration in 1989. Twelve years later, he watched his eldest son, George W. Bush, inaugurated at 54.
Alain Delaquérière contributed analysis.
