When you consider how important it is for Joe Biden to be projecting confidence, physical strength, and mental acuity, the last thing he needs right now is another tumble on the stairs. Yet it very nearly happened again (twice) on Tuesday.
Fortunately for him, he managed to keep his footing.
Unfortunately for his campaign and the White House, it was captured on video.
VIGOR: Biden almost trips (twice) as he boards Air Force One — despite using the short stairs to avoid tripping pic.twitter.com/CkoLnwLV2q
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 20, 2024
Last summer, it was reported that Biden had stopped using the long staircase to Air Force One, to avoid such incidents. "More often than not, he is using a much shorter and sturdier set of stairs that fold out from the belly of the plane,” disclosed NPR. A report from the New York Times last month revealed that Biden's aides are aggressively trying to "shield him from verbal slips and physical stumbles," and there's now "a Secret Service agent positioned at the bottom of the stairs when he disembarks."
I bet that makes everyone feel better about him, right?
If the shorter stairs aren't enough to ensure he can navigate the steps without tripping, what's next? Will he be transported up and down the steps on a gurney?
Related: Now We Know Who Convinced Joe Biden to Seek Reelection
Joe Biden has had more than his fair share of tumbles. In February of last year, he slipped going up the stairs of Air Force One in Poland. A month later, he experienced a minor slip on the stairs leading up to Air Force One before departing Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Ala. Though his most famous battle with stairs was on March 19, 2021, while attempting to walk up the stairs to Air Force One, he fell multiple times.
Another iconic example of Biden's weakness on his feet was when he took a hard fall on stage at the U.S. Air Force Academy graduation last June. The White House claimed he tripped over a sandbag that may have been a MAGA extremist.
“Every second of every day, an older adult (age 65+) suffers a fall in the U.S. — making falls the leading cause of injury and injury death in this age group,” explains the CDC. “One out of four older adults will fall each year in the United States, making falls a public health concern, particularly among the aging population.”
Biden may have been lucky on Tuesday that he didn't fall, but you can imagine that his handlers at the White House are nervous about more embarrassing incidents. This must be especially so after the damning Hur report brought Biden's advanced age and poor memory into the public discourse — even on networks that have tried to avoid that issue. Unlike in 2020, Biden can't hide in his basement during this campaign. And no matter what his handlers try to do to minimize the risk of an embarrassing situation, it's clear they can't protect him completely. Even if they had someone constantly by his side to keep him steady, it would be a bad look.
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