One of those on the left who have spoken against President Joe Biden’s disastrous press conference on Thursday is former Obama advisor and CNN senior political analyst David Axelrod. Speaking to CNN, Axelrod admitted that the press conference in which the president reacted to Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report that said he had a poor memory reinforces the idea that he is too old to be president.

Axelrod said he understood why Biden felt the need to address the report, as he said the report was “red-hot and out there and list people felt he needed to – and his people felt he needed respond to it.”

However, he said that the response was not adequate and only worsened the problem.

“He did contradict elements of the special counsel’s report. And that undoubtedly will go on. And then he was quite angry, not just at the release, or the characterizations of the special counsel, but of what some of the reporters were asking him,” he said.

Emphasizing that Biden’s main problem is the issue of age, he stated, “People don’t give him credit for what he’s done. They blame him for everything that happens and a lot of it has to do with their feelings about his age. So it’s not wise to say to a reporter, ‘That’s your interpretation.’ It’s not. There’s reams of polling material about this. But I’m not sure that he solved his problem tonight.”

At another point during the interview, Axelrod defended Biden, saying that his gaffes at the press event, including confusing the President of Egypt with the President of Mexico, are casual mistakes anyone can make.

“It is true, all of us make mistakes at times, and misstate things. We’re human beings. The problem is this has become a real thing. Now, every time the president does that, it becomes a story. It becomes the thing and it goes viral on social media, where he’s getting pounded on this age issue, particularly among younger people,” he stated.

“So that is a stubborn problem that is an obstacle to get, you know, in his campaign moving forward,” he added.

Axelrod echoed similar sentiments when he spoke to the New York Times about Hur’s report.

“Fair or not, you can’t unring the bell,” he said, as he warned that the report about the president’s cognitive decline “goes to the core of what is plaguing Biden politically now, which is a widespread fear that he’s not up to it.”