Joe Biden falls on stage

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

DENVER (KDVR) — President Joe Biden fell while on stage at the U.S. Air Force Academy graduation.

Thursday, Biden was in Colorado Springs for the USAFA graduation which he attended as the commencement speaker.

In a video at the ceremony, Biden shakes the hands of one of the cadets who received their diploma and appears to trip over a black sandbag and fall onto the stage. He is then helped up by at least three Air Force officials.

The president appeared to be OK and stayed through the end of the ceremony.

As he got back on his feet, Biden pointed to the place on stage where he lost his balance. “He’s fine,” tweeted Ben LaBolt, the White House communications director. “There was a sandbag on stage while he was shaking hands.”

Biden is 80 years old and announced that he will run for reelection for a second term. Biden would be 82 at the start of a second term. He was the oldest president ever to be sworn-in when he took office in 2020.

Biden has been dogged by questions about his age and his fitness to serve, and his missteps have become fodder for political rivals as he campaigns for a second term in 2024. He has stumbled before going up the stairs and onto Air Force One and he once got caught up in his bike pedals while stopping to talk to reporters near his home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

Biden’s personal doctor said after the president’s most recent physical exam in February that Biden “remains a healthy, vigorous 80-year-old male, who is fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency.” Dr. Kevin O’Connor also documented the president’s stiffened gait, which O’Connor said was the result of spinal arthritis, a previously broken foot and neuropathy in the Biden’s feet.

Biden is far from the first national political figure to stumble in public.

President Gerald Ford fell down while walking off Air Force One in 1975. GOP Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas, the GOP presidential nominee at the time, fell off the stage at a campaign rally in 1996. President Barack Obama tripped walking up the stairs to a stage at a 2012 event. “I was so fired up, I missed a stair” he told the crowd.

President Donald Trump’s gingerly walk down a ramp at the 2020 West Point commencement also sparked concerns about his health.

Trump, 76, was campaigning in Iowa when he heard about Biden’s stumble and alluded to his own episode.

“He actually fell down? Well I hope he wasn’t hurt,” Trump said after an audience member told him about what had happened to Biden. “The whole thing is crazy. You gotta be careful about that … ’cause you don’t want that, even if you have to tiptoe down a ramp.”

The audience laughed as Trump recounted slowly inching his way down what he said had been a slippery ramp at the U.S. Military Academy graduation.

“If he fell, it’s too bad,” the former president said. “We gotta just get this thing back on track. That’s a bad place to fall when you’re making, I think it was the Air Force Academy, right? That’s not inspiring.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Suggest a Correction

ncG1vNJzZmien61%2Fr7vWZ5qopV%2Bjsri%2FjqeYraGfo66te8Gim56mXZuurbjSZqanZaOprqixjJqrZpmZp3qnu9GcnGafopaxtq3ToqanZw%3D%3D