Happy Birthday to the Oldest President in History

Joe Biden, the oldest president in American history, turned 81 on Monday. For Biden,  it’s a bittersweet occasion, a birthday that serves as a reminder of his deep struggles with young voters who increasingly view him negatively.

Biden’s mental and physical fitness have been a major issue since his 2020 campaign. Although his predecessor (and likely 2024 opponent), Donald Trump, is only about four years younger, Biden has received far more questions about whether he is capable of being president. 

Younger voters are already dreading a potential second Biden-Trump matchup, with some saying they may just sit out 2024. But the turn against Biden is much more dramatic.

A national NBC News poll that came out on Sunday found that just 42 percent of voters aged 18–34 support Biden. This is a significant drop compared to the 2020 election, when exit polls found that 60 percent of voters aged 18–29 backed Biden. That poll also found Biden trailing Trump with this demographic by four points—an alarming trend, given the president’s success with young voters in the last election. In 2020, 18–29 year olds, for instance flocked to Biden by more than 20 points. 

Multiple polls have found that the majority of voters worry about Biden’s age and how it will affect his ability to work. But younger voters are also concerned that Biden’s age prevents him from understanding their perspective on major issues.

Rachael Carroll, who graduated last year from Clark Atlanta University, told CNN that both Trump and Biden are too old to understand younger voters’ progressive views.

“They don’t understand what we’re going through now because we’re living in two completely different times,” Carroll said.

One crucial issue for young voters is the ongoing war in Gaza. Biden has so far resisted demands from voters to call for a cease-fire there and has provided Israel with significant, unrestricted aid. The outpouring of public support for Palestine has started to wear down Democratic lawmakers, but Biden is holding firm.

That could cost him. Although members of Gen Z are only just reaching voting age, the limited data shows that the majority of Gen Z adults are pro-Palestine.

More than 70 percent of OpenAI’s employees signed a joint letter on Monday demanding that the company’s board of directors resign, capping a weekend fracas sparked by the board’s spontaneous decision to oust co-founder and CEO Sam Altman over a video call during lunch on Friday. Company president Greg Brockman quit the following day after discovering he was being forced out of the board.

“Your actions have made it obvious that you are incapable of overseeing OpenAI,” wrote 505 employees in a joint statement, notifying company heads that they intend to join Microsoft’s AI division as a fallback. “We will take this step imminently, unless all current board members resign, and the board appoints two new lead independent directors, such as Bret Taylor and Will Hurd, and reinstates Sam Altman and Greg Brockman.”

That demand for a mass resignation included the company’s chief scientist, Ilya Sutskever, who helped orchestrate the coup against Altman.

“I deeply regret my participation in the board’s actions,” Sutskever posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, shortly after the letter was issued. “I never intended to harm OpenAI. I love everything we’ve built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company.”

Altman’s dismissal followed a disagreement over the direction of the company’s research division, led by Sutskever, reported CNN. Company heads have denied that narrative. In a Friday letter, the board claimed that Altman had to go because the executive “was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities.”

OpenAI has scrambled to replace Altman since his firing, naming several interim CEOs throughout the weekend before landing on ex-Twitch CEO Emmett Shear, who is tasked with the awkward yet tall order of mending the torn relationship between the company’s board, its employees, and its investors.

The company briefly entertained reinstating Altman before the Silicon Valley entrepreneur announced he had taken a job leading the in-house AI division at Microsoft, OpenAI’s largest financial backer.

OpenAI is worth nearly $100 billion. Artificial intelligence’s capabilities are currently more fantasy than reality, and yet programs like ChatGPT could prove to be among the most important technological developments of this era. The mess at OpenAI suggests that the people in charge of A.I. are barely capable of managing themselves, let alone a potentially transformative program.

Asked about X (formerly Twitter) owner Elon Musk’s antisemitic comments, Florida governor and struggling Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis shrugged.

During a Sunday interview on CNN, anchor Jake Tapper asked DeSantis if he condemned Musk’s comments. DeSantis insisted that he “did not see the comment”—despite the fact that Musk’s claim that Jews “push hatred” against white people had sent advertisers fleeing the platform.

“I know that Elon has had a target on his back ever since he purchased Twitter, because I think he’s taking it in the direction that a lot of people who are used to controlling the narrative don’t like,” the presidential hopeful said.

Tapper then read Musk’s tweet aloud, and DeSantis replied that he is concerned about antisemitism “across the board.” He pointed to recent legislation he signed to combat antisemitism on Florida college campuses. His efforts have resulted in a lawsuit for allegedly violating the First Amendment.

The University of Florida chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine announced last week that it is suing DeSantis and university leaders for shuttering the group. University Chancellor Ray Rodrigues claimed that SJP provides “material support” to a “terrorist organization,” which the chapter says is untrue.

Later in Sunday’s interview, Tapper pointed out that DeSantis still hadn’t actually condemned Musk’s comments. DeSantis hedged once more.

“I know you tried to read it, I have no idea what the context is,” he said. “I know Elon Musk. I have never seen him do anything. I think he’s a guy that believes in America. I have never seen him indulge in any of that. So it’s surprising if that’s true, but I have not seen it. So I don’t want to sit there and pass judgment on the fly.”

An X user posted last week that Jewish communities have pushed “diabolical hatred against whites,” a neo-Nazi talking point. Musk replied, “You have said the actual truth.” About an hour later, he tried to claim he was only criticizing the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish nonprofit Musk has threatened to sue for monitoring hate speech on X. (ADL head Jonathan Greenblatt came to Musk’s defense over the comments, thanks in large part to his support for Israel.)

The next day, a report published by Media Matters found that X has been placing ads for brands including Apple, Bravo, IBM, Oracle, and Xfinity next to posts that promote Hitler and Nazi beliefs.

Advertisers have fled the site in the wake of Musk’s comments and revelations that ads have been displayed on hateful, antisemitic posts.

Meanwhile, marketing leaders have started to urge X CEO Linda Yaccarino to resign. Yaccarino, who used to chair NBCUniversal’s global advertising division, was hired to help steady X from Musk’s tumultuous reign and woo advertisers back to the platform.

But now her former peers are warning her that she risks doing permanent damage to her reputation if she stays on.

“The issue is no longer about content adjacencies or content moderation,” Lou Paskalis, the founder and CEO of marketing firm AJL Advisory told Axios. “It’s simply that the owner is not someone marketers can do business with.”

A new survey of House members indicates that at least 60 Republicans intend to vote to expel Santos, Politico reported. That’s more than double the number who voted against him in another expulsion attempt earlier this month.

The sudden change of opinion follows the release of a scandalous, 56-page ethics report on the New York Republican, which found that he blew campaign funds on personal expenses, including Botox injections, trips to Atlantic City with his husband, and subscriptions on OnlyFans, an online content service primarily used by sex workers.

In order to remove him for good, Democrats will need to rally a unanimous vote from their party along with roughly 80 Republican votes. And that is looking increasingly likely, as right-wing opinion of Santos continues to sour, flipping more Republican votes by the day.

“He’s fucked,” one GOP leadership aide told Politico under the condition of anonymity.

Other Republicans took to social media to express their frustrations, believing that they had given Santos enough time following initial reports that found the freshman congressman lied about almost every detail of his life, including obtaining a college degree, working on Wall Street, and his alleged Jewish heritage.

“I gave Rep. George Santos the time needed for an ethics report following his indictments,” said Iowa Representative Randy Feenstra in a statement.

“Rep. George Santos has proven that his ethics do not align with what we expect from our leaders. In light of the Ethics Committee report, I will vote to expel him from Congress for his illegal and unethical behavior should he choose not to do the right thing and resign,” Feenstra added.

Santos has been indicted on 23 charges related to wire fraud, credit card fraud, money laundering, falsification of records, and identity theft.

Advertisers have fled X, formerly Twitter, in droves in the last 24 hours due to owner Elon Musk endorsing and promoting antisemitic beliefs on the platform.

An X user posted on Wednesday that Jewish communities have pushed “diabolical hatred against whites,” a neo-Nazi talking point. Musk replied, “You have said the actual truth.” About an hour later, he tried to claim he was only criticizing the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish nonprofit Musk has threatened to sue for monitoring hate speech on X.

The next day, a report published by Media Matters found that X has been placing ads for brands including Apple, Bravo, IBM, Oracle, and Xfinity next to posts that promote Hitler and Nazi beliefs.

The floodgates opened soon after. IBM announced Thursday evening that it had paused advertising on X in light of the Media Matters report. The next morning, the European Commission said it had frozen ads on X.

“We have seen an alarming increase in disinformation and hate speech on several social media platforms in recent weeks, and X is certainly quite effective of that,” European Commission spokesperson Johannes Bahrke said at a Friday press conference. “We have therefore advised services to refrain from advertising at this stage on concerned social media platforms.”

Just hours later, Lionsgate Entertainment suspended all ads on X. Apple announced it was following suit less than an hour afterward.

Musk has owned X for little more than a year, and this is now the second time he has sent advertisers running. Hundreds of companies pulled ads from X when Musk first took over, promising to restore free speech to the platform.

Instead, hate speech has flourished during his reign. The social media research group National Contagion Research Institute found that in the 12 hours after Musk bought X, use of the n-word increased almost 500 percent.

And Musk is often a major source of that hate speech and disinformation. In addition to aggressively antisemitic posts, Musk also regularly lets Nazis back on X, shares transphobic content, and spreads conspiracy theories.