Former first lady Jill Biden is reopening one of the ugliest questions from the 2024 presidential campaign, what exactly happened to Joe Biden during his disastrous debate against Donald Trump.
Her latest comments are hardly likely to calm Democrats who would prefer that night remain buried.
During an appearance Thursday on Jamie Kern Lima’s podcast, Jill Biden was pressed [1] directly on whether doctors had ruled out a stroke.
She replied, “Well, they did.” She added that her concern at the time was simply whether her husband was all right.
The former first lady said she had not been around Joe Biden for much of the period leading into the debate.
She had spent two weeks traveling and said she saw him only about an hour before he walked onto the stage.
Jill Biden recalled that the president appeared tired and did not feel well that day.
Still, she said there was no definitive explanation she could identify, leaving room for speculation about an episode that millions of Americans watched unfold in real time.
Lima then took the questioning a dramatic step further, asking, “There’s no way anyone could have, God forbid, laced his drink or something?”
That question arrived after Jill Biden raised the possibility that her husband might have suffered a serious medical emergency during the debate.
She has also entertained broader theories about what could have caused the performance, rather than offering one clear explanation.
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The June 2024 debate became a political earthquake.
Joe Biden stumbled over words, paused for long stretches, appeared confused and displayed facial expressions that alarmed even friendly commentators who had spent years defending his fitness for office.
Democrats who had brushed aside voter concerns suddenly broke ranks.
Party officials, liberal pundits and major donors began publicly demanding that Biden abandon his reelection campaign, proving that the obvious only became acceptable once it appeared on national television.
Jill Biden revisited the episode in her memoir, “View from the East Wing.”
She described her reaction bluntly: “I wasn’t horrified. I was frightened.” That fear, she said, came from seeing her husband behave in a way she had never witnessed before.
“I had never ever seen Joe like that before or since,” Jill Biden said during a May interview.
She also recalled thinking he was having a stroke as she watched the debate, adding, “It scared me to death.”
According to the former first lady, doctors were routinely around the president and assured her that Joe Biden was fine that night.
The couple then continued with additional events, even as the debate performance triggered a national discussion about his health, judgment, and capacity to remain president.
The renewed discussion is proving inconvenient for Democrats trying to move beyond their 2024 collapse.
Kamala Harris eventually became the party nominee, but she lost to Trump after inheriting a political mess that party leaders had insisted for years did not exist.
Andrew Bates, a former Biden spokesman, criticized the decision to revisit the episode publicly.
“I don’t see why that painful conversation for the party needed to be publicly reopened right now.”
Jill Biden responded with little patience for the complaint.
“I want to say to Andrew: Call me up, and say it to my face, buddy.”
Her answer captured the bitterness still surrounding the Democratic Party’s handling of Biden’s decline and the scramble that followed his exit from the race.
George Washington University professor Matt Dallek said many Democrats view the Bidens as focused on the past.
“Democrats seem to feel like they’re focused on the past, they’re focused on Trump coming back to power,” he told Fox News Digital.
Dallek also noted that affection for the Biden family remains within the party, but so does considerable pain over the final years of the administration.
That tension helps explain why every new interview generates fresh irritation among operatives eager to change the subject.
Joe Biden is expected to release his own book about his presidency in November, following the midterm elections.
If Jill Biden’s tour is any indication, Democrats may soon face another round of uncomfortable questions about what officials knew, when they knew it, and why voters were kept in the dark.