Former first lady Jill Biden admitted she was “frightened” by her husband Joe Biden’s June 2024 presidential debate performance, stating she believed he was having a stroke. The revelation came during an interview with CBS News tied to her new memoir View from the East Wing: A Memoir.

“ healing, because I had never ever seen Joe like that before or since,” Biden told CBS News Sunday Morning’s Rita Braver. “I don’t know what happened. As I watched it, I thought, ‘Oh, my God, he’s having a stroke.’ And it scared me to death.”

Biden dropped out of the presidential race a month after the debate, endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee with 107 days remaining until the general election. The decision marked the first time a sitting president withdrew from a race since Lyndon B. Johnson stepped aside in 1968.

The interview directly addresses widespread concerns about Biden’s debate performance, which was described by the Associated Press as fueling questions about his fitness for office due to “shaky, mumbling, and sometimes confused” delivery. Biden’s admission contrasts sharply with Democratic media narratives that previously insisted voters had not witnessed what they saw during the event.

President Trump highlighted this contradiction in a May 29 post, questioning why Jill Biden did not intervene if she believed her husband was having a stroke on live television. The timeline confirms Biden’s exit followed immediately after the debate, leaving his wife’s candid assessment as the most direct evidence of the moment’s gravity.