President Biden, given his advanced age, continues to face occasional struggles with stairs and not stumbling on them, much to the worry of the nation given the problems the stumbles represent and the vast amount of power he controls. Such was the case yet again on the morning of Monday, April 8, when President Biden stumbled a bit and barely regained his balance while working his way up the “short stairs” of Air Force One.
As background, after President Biden stumbled a few times on the somewhat shakey, 18-foot staircase that leads up to Air Force One’s upper door, the picturesque staircase that’s the background of some of the most famous photos of American presidents, he generally stopped using it in favor of the short stairs on the plane. Those stairs, both shorter and less prone to wobbling, lead to the belly of the plane.
NPR commented on the other advantage of the short staircase and the problem his use of that staircase presents for him in an article published in August of 2023, around the time the presidents started using the other staircase. It reported, “Biden, 80, has stumbled on the tall stairs more than once. The short stairs have the distinct advantage of moving most of Biden’s ascent into Air Force One out of public view. But for those who have noticed the shift, it also draws attention to one of Biden’s greatest political liabilities as he seeks reelection: his age.”
In any case, though the president has been using the shorter staircase to avoid slips that could cause bad publicity, while walking up the staircase on Monday, he stumbled a bit while about halfway up the short staircase, tripping but managing to catch himself. The RNC Research account on X (formerly Twitter), wrote, “YIKES: Biden almost trips up the short stairs (again) as he heads to Wisconsin.”
The latest stumbling incident is one of 17 that the RNC Research account has tracked in a reel showing some of his other tripping incidents, some of which are full-on toppling-over incidents and other of which are just him stumbling a bit but managing to right himself, as happened in the Monday incident on the Air Force One short stairs.
Some of the more famous incidents include when Biden struggled up the Air Force One large staircase, falling twice, when he fell to the ground at the Air Force Academy in a dramatic incident, when he lurched to the podium in Pennsylvania, and when he fell off a bike at Rehoboth Beach at a spot briefly marked as “Brandon Falls” on Google Maps. This incident was far less dramatic, though it isn’t the first time he’s struggled with the short stairs.
Watch Biden here:
And watch the trip-counter video here:
President Biden, for his part, has insisted that he is mentally and physically capable of doing the job. Those in his administration have, when asked about his physical and mental capabilities, similarly insisted that Biden is capable of handling his duties as president.
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
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