Gasps reverberated through the crowd as President Biden tumbled on stage during his applause for graduating cadets at the Air Force Academy in Colorado on Thursday.
Regaining his composure, the president rose to his feet and gestured towards a mysterious black sandbag on the platform, seemingly suggesting that he had stumbled over it.
Following a round of handshakes and a salute to the graduates, Biden collapsed. Earlier in the day, he had delivered a commencement address to the newly enlisted Air Force and Space Force personnel.
Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, reassured the public later on Thursday, stating that Vice President Joe Biden was “completely fine” and even sported a “wide grin” as he boarded Air Force One for his return to Washington.
According to a pool report, when reporters inquired about his well-being, President Biden responded indistinctly before departing for the White House.
At the age of 80, Biden stands as the oldest presidential candidate in American history, currently running for office again in 2020. Notably, this wasn’t the first time he had encountered a mishap on the steps of Air Force One, which garnered unwelcome media attention and drew comparisons to a memorable incident involving President Gerald Ford in 1975.
Meanwhile, during a gathering in Iowa, former president Donald Trump was informed about Biden’s fall and expressed his concern, saying, “Did he actually fall? Oh, I sincerely hope he wasn’t hurt!”
The Republican presidential nominee for 2024 shared his sympathy for Biden, recalling his own precarious experiences in the Oval Office. Trump cautioned, “You have to be cautious about that because you don’t want that, even if you have to tiptoe down the ramp,” alluding to a viral video of him slowly descending a ramp after delivering a commencement address at West Point.
Later, Trump remarked, “That’s not a good place to stumble,” referring to Biden’s misstep. “It’s not very motivating.”
Tom Fitton, president of the conservative group Judicial Watch, swiftly reacted on Twitter, expressing his hopes that President Biden hadn’t sustained any injuries in the fall and emphasizing how it highlighted his age-related cognitive and physical challenges.
Talk show host Ben Shapiro chimed in, stating, “You can’t have it both ways.” Laughing at an 80-year-old man falling down is not appropriate, unless, of course, Biden is in remarkable physical shape, in which case his fall could be particularly amusing.
Despite the observation of Dr. Kevin O’Connor, the president’s personal physician, regarding Biden’s “spinal arthritis” and stiff gait, the president received a relatively clean bill of health after his annual physical in February, despite the discovery of a skin cancer lesion.
O’Connor mentioned that Biden’s gait remains stiff but has not worsened since the previous year, attributing a significant portion of his stiffness to “degenerative (wear and tear) osteoarthritic changes (or spondylosis) of his spine” following a thorough examination.
A study authored by O’Connor in November 2021 linked Biden’s “noticeably stiffer” walk to a combination of “significant spinal arthritis, post-fracture ‘limp and compensation,’ and a mild sensory peripheral neuropathy of the feet.”
After his presidential victory in 2020, Biden suffered a broken foot, which he attributed to a playful tug on his dog Major’s tail after a bath.
If Biden were to serve a second four-year term, he would be 86 years old, which could present a disadvantage. In a recent study conducted by The Washington Post and ABC, only 32% of respondents believed Biden was mentally capable of fulfilling his role as president.
In September of the previous year, concerns over the president’s mental acuity arose when he publicly mourned the loss of Representative Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.), later questioning her whereabouts in August and actively searching for her in September.