While recent comparisons have been made between the Reagan era and concerns about President Joe Biden’s fitness to hold office, Saturday’s assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump was also reminiscent of the 1980s.
Peggy Grande, who served as a White House aide after President Ronald Reagan left office, spoke to The Washington Post shortly after Trump was shot in the ear at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday evening.
Reagan himself survived a suicide attempt in 1981.
“The initial reports when Reagan was shot, as you all know, were not what they thought he was, that he was only grazed. If that’s the case, [Trump] With details of the tragic circumstances at Trump’s Pennsylvania rally still emerging, Grande said “Trump is the luckiest man on earth.”
“He’s standing up for something bigger than himself. He knows he’s out there, he knows he’s putting himself at risk every single day, every rally. Not for himself, but for the American people. What a fighter. When he stands up, his instinct is to pump his fist and say, ‘Fight, fight, fight.’ I mean, that awareness,” she said of Trump.
Grande, who is also California’s delegate to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, this week, was speaking to those who compare concerns over Reagan’s age during his 1984 reelection campaign and subsequent presidency to Biden’s own struggles following his poor performance in last month’s debate.
A former Reagan administration staffer suggested this had more to do with cognitive ability than age.
“There are no similarities between the two. I mean, fatherhood comes to all of us equally and we’ve all watched our grandmas and grandpas, our parents, our aunts and uncles grow old. Everybody gets older. There’s nothing we can do about it. Some people age with ease and grace and some people struggle with age. It’s not about age,” Grande, author of “The President Sees You Now,” said.
“To attack President Reagan for cognitive impairment is completely off-base, as he continued to live on for 15 years after leaving the White House. He was transparent with the American people, but that was five years after he left office.”
“Joe Biden is now sitting in the Oval Office and not only do people feel cheated, not only do they feel there has been a lack of transparency in the process, but it’s creating anger and beyond the anger, it’s creating anxiety. This is a man that not only we are looking at, but the world is looking at,” she added.
Reagan died in June 2004, 10 years after disclosing his Alzheimer’s diagnosis in a letter to the American people. Grande worked for Reagan from 1989 to 1999.
“Our enemies are probably looking at this thinking that Joe Biden has only a short time before he leaves office and that he has a very weak commander in chief in the Oval Office. Compare that to Reagan, everyone has a right to grow old. Reagan did it beautifully and was very transparent with the American people and spoke about entering the twilight of his life in beautiful letters. But like Joe Biden, he didn’t hold the nuclear codes at the time.”
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In Letter written on November 5, 1994Reagan offered an optimistic vision for America.
“I now begin my journey into the twilight of my life. I know that a brighter dawn awaits me in America,” he wrote.
The assassination attempt marked a turning point in the presidential election, both Biden and Trump claimed on Saturday night, while Biden continues to say he will continue to campaign, raising questions as Democratic leaders grow increasingly vocal about him passing the baton.
