Jill Biden confronted on praising Joe Biden debate amid stroke fear
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Former First Lady Jill Biden faced questions in an interview Monday about why she praised her husband’s debate performance so soon after his disastrous 2024 showdown with President Donald Trump, despite worrying about former President Joe Biden’s stroke.
On NBC’s “Today” show, co-host Craig Melvin confronted Jill Biden in a post-debate clip in which she praised her husband for answering all the debate questions in front of a group of supporters.
“And in the days and weeks after that, you continued to insist that the president was fine,” Melvin said. “How – how do you reconcile what you said in the days and weeks afterward with the fact that he might have had a stroke? How do you reconcile those two?”
Biden noted that he saw that Joe looked good and acknowledged that he had messed up as he was getting ready to go to another event.
FORMER JILL BIDEN SPEAKER CLAIMS FORMER First Lady ‘TRIED TO CHANGE THE TAPE’ AFTER 2024 DEBATE ADMISSION
First Lady Jill Biden speaks at a 4th of July event on the South Lawn of the White House on July 4, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Samuel Çorum/Getty Images)
“I know we’re going into another event or we’ve got two more things to do and my mind is racing,” Biden said. “What do I tell him? What do I tell him? I’m his wife, I need to get him up. So we go to the next event and I’m thinking: ‘What can I say that will get him up, is this true?’ I want to say the things that are true. “And I said, ‘You answered every question.'”
“That’s a pretty low bar,” Melvin said.
“Well, you know, I had to kind of remove it,” Biden continued. “So I’m his wife. I’m not going to stand up there on stage and say, ‘Joe, you really messed this up.’ I mean, all our supporters are there. So, you know, that was mine, that’s who we are. So I had to support him. I couldn’t open up and actually say, ‘Joe, you did a terrible job in that argument’ in front of everybody.”
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In an interview published last week, the former First Lady revealed that she thought her husband had a stroke during the 2024 debate.
“I wasn’t afraid, I was afraid” Biden recalled this in a recent interview.
“I’ve never seen Joe like that before or since. I don’t know what happened. As I was watching, I said, ‘Oh my God, he’s having a stroke.’ It scared the hell out of me,” he said.
The former president’s debate performance ultimately led to his decision to withdraw from the race. Melvin also confronted Jill Biden about whether he wanted her to encourage him to serve only one term as president.
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First Lady Jill Biden and President Joe Biden await President-elect Donald Trump’s arrival at the inauguration ceremonies at the White House in Washington, DC, on January 20, 2025. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
“You are his closest confidant. You are described as Joe’s instinct. If you could get in a time machine and do it all over again, would you encourage him to never run again?” he asked.
Jill responded: “Looking back, would I want to put Joe through the pain and suffering we felt at the time? Never.”
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“But it should have been his decision, Craig,” he said. “It had to be his decision alone, because he had to live with that decision for the rest of his life. I couldn’t say, ‘Joe, do this’ or ‘Joe, do that.’ Even though the family had input, especially the grandchildren, it was his decision to run in the first place — it was his decision alone. But, you know, it was his decision to come out.”
