‘I was frightened’: Jill Biden confesses she thought Joe Biden was having a ’stroke' during a disastrous debate with Trump

Former first lady Jill Biden revealed that her husband's catastrophic performance in the 2024 presidential debate - before then-Republican candidate Donald Trump- left her convinced that something was physically wrong with the former Democratic president.

In an interview with CBS News's "Sunday Morning" program, a preview of which was broadcast Wednesday, Jill Biden described for the first time what it felt like to see her husband stagger in front of the cameras that night in June 2024, in the midst of the presidential campaign.

As she recounted, the image of Joe Biden scared her deeply because she had never seen him behave that way, either before or after that moment.

"I was frightened," Biden confessed as she recalled the scene. She claimed that as she watched the exchange with Trump, panic set in as she thought her husband might be having a stroke in the middle of a national broadcast.

"I don't know what happened," she continued. "As I watched it, I thought ‘Oh my God, he’s having a stroke.’ And it scared me to death."

The debate marked a turning point in Joe Biden's presidential campaign. Biden's confused answers, silences and sad countenancemultiplied the doubts that were already circulating about his age and fitness both physically and mentally to continue governing the country. While high-profile Democrats publicly tried to downplay the debate, within the Democratic Party itself, calls began to multiply for the president to resign from the race, despite the fact that his entourage in the White House and the campaign team were trying to calm the waters.

Interestingly, Jill Biden herself had come out to publicly defend her husband in those days, praising his performance to supporters at a post-debate event. However, internal pressure eventually prevailed: Biden abandoned his candidacy less than a month after the televised confrontation with Trump.

In the wake of the Democratic defeat and Trump's return to power, several figures in Biden's former circle have questioned how the sensitive issue of his health and age was handled. Among the critical voices is former vice president and one-time ally Kamala Harris, who noted in her book that Jill Biden pressured Doug Emhoff - Harris' husband - to continue backing the president after the debate, creating discomfort for him. Harris further admitted that she herself doubted Biden's ability to prevail over Trump at the polls.