The First Lady has revealed in a new memoir that during the first presidential debate of 2024, she feared her husband had suffered a stroke. The bombshell admission lays bare the panic inside the Biden camp as the president’s performance unravelled on live television. In excerpts obtained by The Guardian, Jill Biden describes watching Joe Biden on stage, his voice faltering, his words slurring.
‘I thought he’d had a stroke,’ she writes. ‘It was terrifying.’ The revelation will re-ignite questions about Biden’s health and fitness for office.
His campaign has consistently dismissed such concerns. But this comes from his wife. The one person who would know.
Insiders whisper that the Biden inner circle was in denial for weeks after that debate. They told themselves it was a cold, a bad night. They convinced donors it was a blip.
They were wrong. The First Lady’s account confirms what the country saw with its own eyes. A president struggling.
A campaign in crisis. The fallout was immediate. Calls for Biden to step aside grew louder.
Donors froze funds. Senior Democrats panicked. The debate turned a difficult race into a near impossible one.
And at the centre of that storm was Jill Biden, her husband’s fiercest defender, now admitting she too doubted his capability. The book is due for release next week. Expect fireworks.
Expect questions about the 25th Amendment. Expect the White House to be playing defence for months.
