Jill Biden Reveals She Thought Joe Biden Was Having a Stroke During 2024 Debate

Former first lady Jill Biden says she feared her husband, former President Joe Biden, was suffering a stroke during his 2024 debate performance against President Donald Trump.

In an interview with CBS News‘ Rita Braver scheduled to air Sunday on CBS News Sunday Morning, Jill Biden described watching the June 2024 CNN debate in horror as her husband struggled through answers, lost his train of thought, and appeared visibly frail onstage.

“I was frightened, because I had never ever seen Joe like that before or since. Never,” Jill Biden said in excerpts released ahead of the broadcast. “I don’t know what happened,” she added. “As I watched it, I thought, ‘Oh, my God, he’s having a stroke.’ And it scared me to death.”

At the time of the debate, Biden was seeking a second term in the White House and had spent months dismissing questions about whether, at 81 years old, he was physically and mentally capable of serving another four years. But the debate against Trump quickly became a turning point.

Throughout the 90-minute event, Biden appeared hoarse, spoke softly, and repeatedly lost his train of thought. Several answers became nearly impossible to follow, while Trump seized on the president’s struggles to paint him as weak and unfit for office.

The immediate fallout was brutal as Democratic lawmakers, donors, and strategists openly questioned whether Biden should remain the party’s nominee. Cable news networks spent days dissecting the debate, while major newspapers published editorials urging Biden to step aside.

Despite the mounting pressure, Jill Biden publicly defended her husband in the days after the debate. At a rally immediately afterward, she praised Biden for answering every question and “knowing all the facts,” comments that later became controversial as Democratic anxiety intensified.

Behind closed doors, however, her new comments suggest the former first lady herself was alarmed by what she witnessed onstage. Biden initially resisted calls to withdraw from the race, insisting he could still defeat Trump. But concerns inside the Democratic Party continued to grow as polls showed support slipping.

One month after, however, Biden announced he was ending his reelection campaign and endorsed then-Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee. His decision came with just 107 days remaining before Election Day.

The move made Biden the first sitting U.S. president to abandon a reelection campaign since President Lyndon B. Johnson withdrew from the 1968 race during the Vietnam War era.

Biden himself later attributed the debate performance to exhaustion and illness, saying he had been suffering from a cold and dealing with an intense travel schedule leading into the event.