(Bloomberg) -- Blackstone Inc. executive and billionaire Democratic donor Jon Gray said he hopes President Joe Biden weighs the intense physical demands of running the country for another four years.
“I would hope he considers the really extreme physical toll of this business, this job, I should say, over the next four and a half years,” the Blackstone president said in a Bloomberg interview with Sonali Basak. “It is a very challenging physical job.”
Gray’s comments come as Biden faces mounting calls from Democratic party leaders and others to bow out of the presidential race, after his halting debate performance against former President Donald Trump in June unleashed doubts about the sitting president’s mental acuity. At 81, Biden is the oldest US president.
Some Democratic donors have said they will withhold any future contributions until Biden is off the ticket. Gray said that the decision of whether Biden should stay in the race is the President’s alone.
“The president is a good man,” Gray said. “He has been a wonderful public servant. This is his decision.”
Biden faces an energized Republican party, which has rallied around GOP frontrunner Trump after he survived an assassination attempt during a Pennsylvania rally last weekend.
Gray spoke out against the shooting. “The assassination attempt was very disturbing,” he said. “There’s no place for that in our country.”
Should Trump win the presidency, Gray expects changes in tariff policies and antitrust issues.
“Regulatory change could be pretty significant,” particularly in the areas of mergers and acquisitions and antitrust matters, “which has made dealmaking a bit more challenging,” he said.
--With assistance from Sonali Basak.
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
