Washington’s Age Conversation Has Changed. Has Chuck Grassley?

The core of President Donald Trump’s agenda runs through Chuck Grassley, who has been in the chamber longer than his vice president has been alive.

Trump must count on the 91-year-old Senate Judiciary chair for everything from remaking the immigration system to unraveling the so-called “deep state” to ushering in conservative dominance of the federal courts — and that may turn out to be risky: According to interviews with a dozen lawmakers, lobbyists and other current and former GOP officials, some Republicans are privately questioning whether he’s too old for a job central to the execution of Trump’s agenda.

It’s not Grassley’s first time in the Washington spotlight, of course. But his latest turn holding a gavel comes as the public perception of aging politicians is being radically transformed — most prominently by the question his old Judiciary Committee colleague, Joe Biden, faced about his mental fitness before leaving the White House this week.

On Capitol Hill, there has been a similar sea change, prompted by the recent revelation that former Rep. Kay Granger (R-Tex.) had been living with dementia in an assisted-living facility for the end of her term, and the obvious mental and physical decline of the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who had to relinquish her own chance to chair Judiciary before her 2023 death in office.

So far, nothing seems awry. At a hearing last week for Trump’s attorney general pick, Grassley led the nearly six-hour-long affair smoothly, with just one hiccup when he appeared to misunderstand a joke made by nominee Pam Bondi.

“Doesn’t that answer your question?” Grassley said in an interview a day after the hearing, when asked whether age was an obstacle to doing his job.

More broadly, Grassley argued that voters are still on his side, citing his big margin winning an eighth Senate term in 2022 bid even amid questions about his age.

“We’ve got freedom of speech in this country,” he said. “But the voters speak, and I won by 13 percent or maybe 12 percent … Isn’t age just a number?”

Yet as the Senate’s only nonagenarian, and one holding a crucial gavel, he’s now under the microscope in an entirely new way. As president pro tempore of the Senate, he is also a stone’s throw away from the presidency, next in line after Speaker Mike Johnson and Vice President JD Vance.

Some Republicans in the committee’s orbit are wondering what might happen if the Iowa Republican’s health at any point takes a turn — much as it did for Granger, Feinstein or, for those with stronger memories, former Sens. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) or Thad Cochran (R-Miss.).

They acknowledge that he appears capable now but there are concerns about the precarity of any 91-year-old’s health with Trump’s domestic policy agenda at stake.

“Statistically speaking, he could kick the bucket at any moment — like, what happens then?” said one Republican who has worked with the Senate Judiciary Committee, pointing specifically to the panel’s jurisdiction over immigration issues. “And will there be disruption to the Trump agenda? … That takes stamina that you could say a 91-year-old doesn’t have.”

Like others interviewed for this story, this Republican was granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive subject.

Grassley is fully aware of the newfound relevance of the age question, given the questions about Biden that were supercharged by the former president’s poor debate performance last June that ultimately prompted a shakeup atop the Democratic ticket.

He has carefully declined to comment on Biden’s age, given the implications.

“Wouldn't you think it’d be intellectually dishonest for me, at 91 years of age, to say Biden was too old to be president?” Grassley said. “With just three years difference, you could say the same thing about Trump. But you can obviously see that Trump has got enough vigor, vigorous enough to be an outstanding president, and it’s the same for Chuck Grassley to be a senator.”

Like Biden, Grassley approaches the uncomfortable conversation with humor. Sitting down for an interview, the chair repeatedly made playful comments about the age of his interrogator, asking whether she was in high school and implying facetiously that she was too young for her job.

Also like Biden, Grassley’s retorts amount to a challenge to measure his competence according to his performance. Or, as the former president would say, “Watch me.”

In Biden’s case, the public did watch, and it prompted the implosion of his half-century career in Washington.

Beyond his handling of the Bondi hearing, Grassley pointed to the pressure-cooker hearings he held for then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in 2018, during his previous stint as Judiciary chair.

Six years later, Grassley appears largely the same. He has recovered from hip surgery to repair a fracture in 2023, but a health episode in early 2024, when Grassley was hospitalized for an infection, also underscores how swiftly his position might change.

In a separate interview for a forthcoming episode of the Playbook Deep Dive podcast, Grassley said he consulted with his wife and five children before running in 2022. “A couple of my kids said, ‘I think you ought to retire,’” he said. “And a year later, those same kids said, ‘I think [with] the condition of the country, you ought to run again.’”

On tap after Bondi are more contentious hearings, including for FBI Director nominee Kash Patel and — potentially — replacements for Supreme Court justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, who are thought likely to retire in the coming years. Those grinding proceedings would be the ultimate test of his capacity to lead the panel.

None of Grassley’s Senate colleagues has publicly questioned his suitability for the job. Neither party is incentivized to question the age of their adversaries when both count many septuagenarians and octogenarians in their top ranks.

Grassley’s Democratic counterpart, the committee’s ranking member Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), is 80. Republicans closed ranks last year around then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, now 82, after he experienced a number of public health episodes.

“When the world ends and hell freezes over, there will be three things left, Chuck Grassley, Mitch McConnell and cockroaches,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), a Judiciary member, who added that Grassley “pisses excellence and experience.”

Also solidifying the chair’s standing is that Trump’s orbit is filled with Grassley alumni. Andrew Ferguson, a former Grassley aide, is set to lead the Federal Trade Commission. Mike Davis, who helped the first Trump administration on its Supreme Court fights, previously served as chief counsel to Grassley on nominations.

Davis, much like he is about Trump, is a fierce defender of Grassley. He maintains steadfastly that the Iowa senator is the same man he was decades ago when Davis was opening his mail. Davis said Grassley wouldn’t have accepted the job if he did not think he could do it.

“His only vice is ice cream,” Davis said. “People were saying this time that Chuck Grassley could get passed over. That’s just not how it works. And why would he get passed over? He’s Trump’s biggest ally in the Senate.”

Grassley's relationships with powerful allies appear to be paying off. Bryan Lanza, a lobbyist who worked for Trump in 2016 and 2024, said the president’s orbit had no reason to believe Grassley could not do the job.

In fact, Lanza argued, Grassley’s age — and lack of ambition — could be seen as an asset. Grassley isn’t thinking about his next election, being outflanked on the right or higher office — his biggest success would be to cement Trump’s priorities, he said.

“Is he running a marathon? No,” he said. “We don’t need his legs, we need his mind.”

Speaking of those legs, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), another member of the Judiciary Committee, invoked Grassley’s famous morning as proof of his fitness.

But those runs have turned into “shuffling” these days, Grassley said in the interview. And instead of three miles, it’s now two miles, six times a week. The morning of the interview, he decided it was too cold to exercise, with temperatures hovering in the teens.

He asked not to be judged for taking a day off: “You aren’t 91 years old,” he said.