Voters believe Trump would be better able to handle a nuclear emergency, stay alert during meetings and remember the name of other world leaders than Biden

It is a classic of political advertising: A red telephone is ringing at 3am in the White House.

Who do you want answering it? 

Not Joe Biden, is the result of an exclusive new poll, which found that 77-year-old Donald Trump is more trusted to deal with a nuclear crisis or handle a one-hour summit with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin than his 81-year-old successor.

The 2024 election pits the two oldest candidates in history against each other. 

Both have a history of botching names, misremembering key details, and garbling speech lines.

Yet barring some kind of calamity, one or the other will be sworn in for a second term as commander in chief at a time of intense geopolitical uncertainty.

U.S. intelligence agencies recently warned of an 'increasingly fragile world order as Russia and China jockey for position against a backdrop of regional conflicts, economic strains and accelerating use of artificial intelligence. 

Brett Bruen, president of the Global Situation Room and a former U.S. diplomat, said the state of the world in 2024 meant that voters would want to pick a cool head.

'The likelihood that we could find ourselves embroiled in a major conflict is greater now, arguably, than at any point since the Berlin Wall fell, and the scenarios in which a commander in chief is going to be called upon to make split second decisions is  greater now than at at any point in the last several decades,' he said. 

To test confidence in each of the two candidates, J.L. Partners polled 1005 likely voters on how they thought Biden and Trump would handle everything from national security crises to simply remembering aides' names.

The results do not make for encouraging reading for either candidate but are particularly grim for the man already in the job.

While some 56 percent of respondents said they had confidence in Trump to make 'decisions and be fully alert during a nuclear emergency,' only 45 percent said the same thing of Biden.

Almost two thirds said they trusted Trump to make it through a one-hour meeting with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, but only 43 percent thought Biden could manage it.

Trump, said respondents, was much more likely to remember the names of key staff, beating Biden by 15 points.

And Biden was judged less likely to even remember the name of a world leader while he was talking to them (Trump beat him by 59 percent to 46) and be properly able to digest the contents of his daily national security briefings.

The results are skewed by party leanings. But the differences are even more pronounced among independent voters. 

Only 37 percent of independents believe Biden could make it through a one-hour meeting with Putin, for example. 

It demonstrates the challenge facing the oldest president in history as he seeks to convince voters he has the physical and intellectual vigor to lead the country for another four years.

James Johnson, co-founder of J.L. Partners which ran the poll, said age is not so much a number as a perception for voters.

'Though Trump is only three years Biden's junior, they think he is up to the job and will be able to manage the pressures of the office,' he said.

'A lot of this is due to Trump's presentation, frenetic activity, and regular stump speeches. He is also resting on his political reputation for strength: voters say strength is Trump’s biggest asset, and that he is more physically strong and able to get things done than Biden. 

'That is all coming together and crystallising in voters’ minds as a relative positive about Trump.'

They may have concerns about his style and demeanor, but they do not doubt his ability to handle the rigors of office. 

The winner of the election will have a full in-tray. 

The war in Ukraine rumbles on with no end in sight. Russia has detained American citizens for use as bargaining chips.

The crisis at the southern border has become a permanent feature, bringing concerns about national security threats.

China is pursuing expansionist policies through the Indo-Pacific region, leaving Taiwan in ever greater fear of invasion.

The Hamas attack on Israel and the Israeli response have energized Iranian-backed proxies throughout the Middle East.

'An ambitious but anxious China, a confrontational Russia, some regional powers, such as Iran, and more capable non-state actors are challenging longstanding rules of the international system as well as U.S. primacy within it,' U.S. spy agencies said in their 2024 Annual Threat Assessment released earlier this month.

With two candidates aged 77 and 81, Bruen said voters needed to look not just at the abilities of the two men.

'Equally important are those that they will surround themselves with, because ultimately, when you're dealing with someone who is older—and in the case of Trump as someone who's prone to rash moves—it really comes down to the national security adviser, the defence secretary, the secretary of state to guide him back from the brink,' he said.

Biden had shown caution when confronted with an apparent Chinese spy balloon floating across the country or Russian missiles falling on NATO territory,' he added.

'If it comes down to a decision between slow and stupid,' he said, 'I'll take slow.'