President Joe Biden appeared to slip while walking down the short stairs from Air Force One on Wednesday, hours after staff mocked a report about how they are trying to prevent him from falling.
Biden was exiting the plane in Michigan and nearly halfway down the steps when he appeared to lose his step and grasp the stair rail more tightly for support.
Axios had just published a report earlier in the day that said Biden and his campaign staff considered it “critical” to his re-election bid that he does not trip.
The report revealed that Biden, 80, has been working with a physical therapist to improve his balance as far back as November 2021, and that since his fall at an Air Force ceremony in June, when he tripped over a sandbag, he has been wearing tennis shoes more often to avoid slipping, as well as using the short stairs to enter and depart Air Force One.
Axios reported: “Why it matters: Democrats, including some in the administration, are terrified that Biden will have a bad fall — with a nightmare scenario of it happening in the weeks before the November 2024 election.”
The report also said, “some senior Democrats” are privately frustrated with Biden’s advance team “for months,” citing the sandbag incident and noting that the president often appears not to know which direction to go after he speaks at a podium. (An advance team consists of White House staffers that do preparatory work on-location before Biden visits a site).
Axios reported that Biden works out “many mornings” with physical therapist Drew Contreras, who also worked with former President Obama, on his balance, which he called “proprioceptive maintenance maneuvers.”
A professor interviewed by Axios said he has never heard that term.
“I have never heard the term ‘proprioceptive maintenance maneuvers.’ It is not a clinical term in standard use,” Professor James Gordon, associate dean and chair of the Division of Biokinesiology and Physical Therapy at the University of Southern California, told the outet.
White House staffers had mocked the article after it was published and before Biden slipped again.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates posted on X, “Move over, tan suit,” in reference to former President Barack Obama being ridiculed for wearing a tan suit.
Earlier, Bates posted a photo of himself and some staffers, some who were wearing sneakers.
He slammed Axios’s report, saying it fit “an unfortunate pattern of media attempting to sensationalize something that has long been public, rather than covering the president’s very real achievements for hardworking Americans.”
However, Biden’s slip after the article may only reinforce concerns voters have about Biden’s age.
A recent AP poll showed that three-fourths of Americans see Biden as too old.
Follow Breitbart News’s Kristina Wong on Twitter, Truth Social, or on Facebook.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.