NYT’s Peter Baker Says Biden Is Skipping Public 81st Birthday Celebration Because He ‘Doesn’t Want to Call Attention’ to His Age

President Joe Biden may have joked about his age while pardoning turkeys at the White House Monday, but New York Times reporter Peter Baker told viewers on MSNBC not to expect any elaborate celebrations for the president’s 81st birthday.

As the president stood at the dais with two turkeys named Liberty and Bell, he joked, “I just want you to know it’s difficult turning 60,” which drew a laugh from the crowd.

But, Baker said, the White House is still doing its best to point the focus away from Biden’s age, as some Democrats have even called for Biden to step aside and let a younger person run in 2024.

“You’re not going to see a big lavish celebration the way Barack Obama celebrated his 50th birthday in office or Bill Clinton celebrated his birthdays in office with fundraisers and concerts and all that. You’re going to see basically almost nothing,” Baker said on Andrea Mitchell Reports. He continued:

I mean, he’s not going to do anything in public about it today, doesn’t want to call attention to it. He’ll celebrate in private up in Nantucket with his family tomorrow when he goes up for the Thanksgiving holiday.

The White House, I think, is pretty tired of talking about this issue but it is one of the most salient issues out there according to all the polls, not just the Trump people think he’s too old; it’s that too many Democrats from the point of view of the White House think he is too old. At age 81, it’s hard for him to convince otherwise.

Now, what you see from the White House is, “Look, judge him by his record and performance.” You see, just in the last few weeks alone, a president who is not only managing this war in the Middle East, maybe not to everybody’s liking, but certainly showing great energy in doing so. But also meeting with the leader of China, with leaders from Asia, with leaders from Latin America and the leader of Mexico, and so on.

Baker pointed out that Donald Trump, the presumed GOP nominee for 2024, is just three years younger and “demonstrating his own cognitive issues on the campaign trail lately.”

According to RealClearPolitics, Trump is currently edging out Biden by one-and-a-half points.

Watch the clip above via MSNBC.