Did you miss Biden's worrying joke at a recent campaign event?
On November 9th, Joe Biden made a joke that hit at the heart of the single biggest issue he's facing as he seeks a second term in the Oval Office. What was it? A quip about him not being the one to fall down during a campaign event in Illinois.
Biden was delivering a speech about labor unions in Chicago when a loud crashing sound was suddenly heard. According to The Hill, the president asked the person who made the noise if they were okay and then said: “I want the press to know that wasn’t me."
The person who made the noise had apparently tripped on a riser at the event, and Biden earned a hearty laugh from the crowd as he joked about not being the person falling down this time, a reference to a fall he took on stage earlier in 2023.
Biden was handing out diplomas on stage at the U.S. Air Force Academy’s graduation ceremony in Colorado when cameras caught the President stumbling and falling to the stage floor with the White House later stating that he had tripped over a sandbag.
"He's fine,” White House Communications Director Ben LaBolt wrote at the time in a response on Twitter to a post from Bloomberg’s Josh Wingrove informing his followers of the fall.
"There was a sandbag on stage while he was shaking hands," LeBolt continued, though the reassurance didn’t stop speculation online that Biden might have been after falling.
Reuters noted that the 80-year-old Biden fell forward and caught himself with his hands, then got up quickly on his knee and rose to his feet with the help of three other people before walking unassisted back to his seat and pointing back at what he tripped over.
Biden had been standing for about an hour and a half according to BBC News and had shaken the hands of at least 921 graduating Air Force cadets before taking his tumble.
"I got sandbagged!" Biden joked with reporters when he arrived at the White House, and he wasn’t the only one making jokes about his stumble on stage during the graduation.
Former President Donald Trump commented on Biden’s fall during his own campaign event in Iowa and said the incident was "crazy" in his typical Trumpian fashion. "I hope he wasn't hurt," the likely Republican nominee joked, adding that the entire situation was “not inspiring.”
"You got to be careful about that because you don't—you don't want that,” Trump said. “Even if you have to tiptoe down the ramp," he continued, referencing what BBC News said was probably his own frightful stage fall that made international headlines in 2020.
Biden's tumble prompted questions from all sides of the American political spectrum on whether or not he was fit to continue for another term in office. It was a situation made worse by the fact that Biden's fall on stage wasn't his first tumble while serving as President of the United States.
In June 2022, Biden fell off a bike while trying to dismount it during a morning ride according to New York Magazine.
Biden had stopped to speak with a group of people near his vacation home in Rehoboth Beach and got his legs entangled with the bike, leading to his graceless tumble to his side. “I got my foot caught up,” Biden explained. But the political damage was done.
David Axelrod was a senior advisor to President Barack Obama and said that Biden's fall at the Air Force graduation ceremony underscored the vulnerability he faced in the next presidential election over questions of his age and whether he could still handle the demands of the Oval Office.
“This is a liability that comes with age. Incidents like these are going to be blown up,” Axelrod said according to Politico. “They are going to be a greater concern than it would be if he were twenty years younger.”
"This is a burden he is going to have to overcome.” Axelrod continued. “This is going to be an ongoing challenge."
It's been roughly six months since Biden's fall at the Air Force graduation and Axelrod's words have never rung truer, especially as questions about Biden's age have continued to dog his campaign bid.
More and more Americans have started to openly wonder if Biden is the right horse to back for 2024, and concerns about his health are likely to continue into Biden's campaign.