Reagan’s Daughter Speaks Up, Agrees with Haley

(USNewsMag.com) – Patti Davis, the daughter of deceased former President Ronald Reagan, said she agrees with Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley that all candidates should probably be required to take mental competency tests to run.

Davis appeared on NBC on Sunday, February 18th, and host Kristen Welker raised the subject of age and reminded viewers that President Joe Biden is now in his 80s and former President Donald Trump is nearing his 80s. He then asked Davis if she thinks “there should be cognitive tests” for those who run for the White House.

Davis replied that she believes there “probably” should be considering what is known about the effects of aging and that although not everyone is affected as severely as others, it would “probably be a good idea” to test them anyway. Davis then mentioned her father and noted that he was 77 at the end of his second term, which she said “seems so young now,” alluding to Biden and Trump’s ages. At the time of his inauguration, Reagan was 69 and the oldest person elected to office before Biden broke the record; Trump was also 69 when he took office in January 2016.

Welker then asked Davis if it felt like her father was too old during that time, to which she replied that Reagan wasn’t someone “fractured in age.” She clarified that she “probably thought he was old” because it was her father and she was much younger, but that people in the country did not think so in the same way it’s currently being discussed.

Davis was also asked what she believed Reagan would say to today’s politicians if he were alive. She believes “he would want people to look at one another as human beings.” Davis said this is the reason her father and Gorbachev “were able to do what they did,” leading to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of communism in Russia, which she called a “world-changing” development at the time. She said the two world leaders were able to see one another as human beings, which Davis believes is “missing” in today’s political atmosphere.

The late president’s daughter lamented the current divisions in America, which she said are based on fear and “not sustainable.” At such a tumultuous time, Davis said Americans need to know that those making decisions about the country’s future are “at the top of their game.”