Do Joe Biden and Donald Trump have what it takes to serve another term as president? When the latest poll by the Washington Post and ABC News posed questions about age, mental acuity, and physical stamina to voters, the numbers were not good for Biden but less bad for Trump. The men are only four years apart, but the public perception of the two is very different.

Both men have doctors who declare them healthy and perfectly capable of carrying out the duties of president.

Though Biden, 80, and former president Donald Trump, 76, are close in age, the poll shows that Americans have strikingly different views about their capabilities, even as Biden’s doctor has declared the incumbent healthy. About a third of Americans (32 percent) say Biden has the mental sharpness to be effective in the White House, while 54 percent say the same of Trump. And one-third (33 percent) say Biden is in good enough physical health for the job; while 64 percent say that about Trump, the leading Republican candidate.

Overall, more than 4 in 10 Americans (43 percent) say in the poll that both Biden and Trump are too old to serve new terms as president when they would be 82 and 78, respectively on Inauguration Day. Yet here again there is a divergence between perceptions of Biden and Trump: About a quarter, 26 percent, say only Biden is too old, while 1 percent say only Trump is too old. Another 28 percent say neither candidate is too old to serve another term.

Voters think the ages of 82 (Biden) and 78 (Trump) are too old for someone to serve as president. In 2024, if Biden were re-elected, he would be 82 years old as he starts his second term. Even for men in perfect tip-top health, there would have to be some healthy skepticism that he would last throughout the entire four years. Biden is not in tip-top shape going into a second term. His mental decline is obvious to anyone who cares to admit seeing it as time goes on and his physical stamina is already suffering to the point that his handlers only book overseas travel on a limited basis. He gets too tired when he travels overseas, they say. He relies on someone to lead him around as it is. He usually looks dazed and confused and that is not a position of strength to project to the world.

Most crucially devastating for Biden’s re-election efforts is that he has lost independents. No candidate of either party can get elected without independent voters. That’s just the math. That is why candidates favor returning over and over again to swing states.

About 7 in 10 independents say Biden lacks the mental sharpness and physical health to serve effectively, and about 1 in 5 Democrats say the same. The vast majority of Republicans (94 percent) say Biden lacks the mental sharpness to be president. Of those Americans who say Biden does not have the mental sharpness to serve as an effective president, 12 percent say they would definitely or probably vote for him against Trump, and 67 percent say they would probably or definitely support Trump.

Indications are popping up that Team Biden is well aware that the boss is too old for the job. Biden is slowly starting to sit for interviews with very friendly reporters and he is trying to do a hard sell on his mental and physical health. While Jill Biden and granddaughter Finnegan were enjoying coronation weekend in London, Joe stayed at the White House this weekend ( a rarity) and did a late primetime interview with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle. She served him well with a softball interview and all but swooned over the man. He defensively told her that he is the smartest person in the room at all times. Uh-huh. Put down your beverage to avoid a spit-take to the upcoming quote from the interview.

In the interview, Biden’s first since announcing his reelection campaign, host Stephanie Ruhle asked him why an 80-year-old president deserves to continue holding the job when most Fortune 500 companies are not looking for an octogenarian chief executive.

“Because I have acquired a hell of a lot of wisdom and know more than the vast majority of people,” Biden said. “And I’m more experienced than anybody that’s ever run for the office. And I think I’ve proven myself to be honorable as well as also effective.”

Alrighty then. I don’t know who he is describing but it’s not Joe Biden. He’s a legend in his own mind. This kind of arrogance is what keeps getting him into trouble. The withdrawal from Afghanistan, for example, was a horrific disaster and it is said Biden refused to take the advice of his military leadership and experts, he went it alone. We see what the tragic results were with the loss of 13 American military members and many injured Americans and Afghans on the ground at the Kabul airport. Biden’s arrogance is deadly.

The reference to experience is an interesting one. I mean, sure, he’s been in elected office for over 50 years but what experience does he have? He’s been in one office – the Senate – and then became Obama’s vice president. He had no real success in either venture. No one says, “Joe did this or that” when speaking about his time in the Senate or as vice president as a way of touting noticeable success. Someone with an extraordinary variety of experience and accomplishments was George H.W. Bush if we’re looking for a better example. Going all the way back to the fact that his candidacy for office in his early career turned out to establish the Republican Party in Harris (Houston) County, Texas, he was a leader, not a Bidenesque barnacle.

If you are wondering if Biden fangirl Stephanie Ruhle asked about Joe’s wayward son, Hunter, she did at the end of the interview. Joe stands behind his son, as you would expect a father to do.

Shedding any of the reluctance that the White House typically has on commenting on ongoing criminal cases, Biden said, “He has done nothing wrong. And I’m proud of him.”

Asked how the possible charges could impact his presidency, Biden said, “My son has done nothing wrong. I trust him. I have faith in him. It impacts my presidency by making me feel proud of him.”

Biden has a bad habit of weighing in on legal cases. He convicted the Border Patrol agents falsely accused of whipping migrants along the Rio Grand River before the case was even investigated. Now he is going to bat for Hunter though there is plenty of mounting evidence against his innocence and Joe himself will likely find himself mired in his son’s illegal activities. The Big Guy should tread lightly.