Remember when Biden fell on stage at a public event?

President Joe Biden's fitness for office has come under increasing scrutiny since his poor performance in his historic debate with Donald Trump. But recent calls about whether or not Biden can perform his presidential duties aren't new.

In 2023, Biden took a tumble while on stage at a U.S. Air Force event and his fall sent shockwaves through the media as some began to publicly question whether Biden was still the right man for the job. But what happened on that day?

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.

The White House later came out with a statement on the incident that noted the president had tripped over a sandbag that was on stage. It was a message aimed at repairing the damage to Biden's public image. 

"He's fine,” White House Communications Director Ben LaBolt wrote at the time in a response on Twitter—now known as X—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 about Biden's fall and why he tipped over in the first place. 

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 later 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, a former senior advisor to President Barack Obama, 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." Axelrod's comments now seem prophetic since the burden of Biden's age has become the central 2024 campaign issue. 

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 as the election ramps up over the coming months.

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.