Schumer: Biden’s mental acuity is ‘great’

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters Tuesday morning that President Biden’s mental acuity is “great,” responding to concerns stirred by a special counsel’s report that said the president has “poor memory.”

“I talk to President Biden regularly. Usually several times in a week. His mental acuity is great, it’s fine, it’s as good as it’s been over the years,” Schumer said in response to a question.

“I’ve been speaking to him for 30 years since we worked on the Brady Bill, the assault weapons ban when I was a young congressman,” Schumer said.

“He’s fine. All this right-wing propaganda that his mental acuity has declined is wrong,” Schumer said.

Democratic senators haven’t discussed Biden’s age or memory as a political problem at any of their caucus lunches, but some Democrats are privately concerned about polls showing that many voters think Biden’s too old for the job.

An ABC News/Ipsos poll published Sunday found that 59 percent of Americans think Biden and former President Trump are too old to serve another term as president.

An NBC News poll published last week found that three-quarters of voters and half of Democratic voters say they have concerns about Biden’s mental and physical health.

Schumer dismissed the polls and argued that Biden is in a strong position to win a second term.

“He’s going to win the election because he has a great record, because more and more Americans are seeing that record, because the economy is improving and because a large number of Americans including Republicans fear a Donald Trump presidency,” he said.

The Labor Department reported Tuesday that consumer prices rose by 3.1 percent compared to a year ago — a decline compared to December when prices rose by 3.4 percent compared to the previous December.

But the reading was slightly higher than the 2.9 percent annual inflation increase that economists had projected for January.