Former first lady Jill Biden said she was so “frightened” by the 2024 debate performance by her husband, President Joseph R. Biden, that she thought he was having a stroke.
“I was frightened because I had never seen Joe like that before or since. Never,” Mrs. Biden said in an interview with “CBS News Sunday Morning” that was released on Wednesday.
“I don’t know what happened,” Mrs. Biden continued. “As I watched it, I thought, ‘Oh my God, he’s having a stroke.’ And it scared me to death.”
The interview marked the first time Mrs. Biden acknowledged her husband’s abysmal debate performance in June 2024 against President Trump, which sparked calls for him to drop out of the race.
President Joe Biden and first lady …
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Mr. Biden stumbled in his responses to questions, coughed throughout the debate, and delivered his answers so quickly that they were often hard to discern.
Several images from the debate in which Mr. Biden appeared frozen and slack-jawed while not speaking went viral, fueling intense public scrutiny of his health.
Days after the debate, Mrs. Biden stood by her husband, saying it shouldn’t represent his career.
“We will not let those 90 minutes define the four years he’s been president. We will continue to fight,” she told Vogue. “He will always do what’s best for the country.
Mr. Biden dropped out of the race a month later, with 107 days to go until the election, endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee. He became the first sitting president to drop out of a race since President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968.
