Joe Biden nearly fell up the stairs of Air Force One, again, on Wednesday amid concerns about his health and mental state.
The president was on his way to Illinois to discuss the recent downtick in – but still at a 40-year high – inflation, when he slipped as he entered Air Force One
The gaffe was reminiscent of last year’s tumble where the Biden fell three times while trying to board the plane in Atlanta, with the White House blaming strong gusts of winds for the president’s falls.
Biden, 79, who became oldest American to be inaugurated as president at 78, has garnered concerns over his health as his presidency has been marred with blunders and slips of the tongue.
Concerns about the presidents age were brought up throughout his campaign against Donald Trump, and shortly after his election win in November 2020, Biden suffered a broken foot while playing with his dog, Major.
In November 2021, Biden underwent a colonoscopy and briefly transferred power to Vice President Kamala Harris, making her for a time the first acting female President in US History. Biden took control back after the procedure.
During the operation Mr. Biden had a small polyp on his colon removed which was later found to be benign.
His 2019 medical examination found that he took medication for several common age-related conditions like elevated cholesterol and a minor heart arrhythmia.
Concerns over his health resurfaced in March 2021, when the president was filmed tumbling three times on his way to board Air Force One.
Last month, Biden led a speech regarding the supply chain crunch at the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, but the speech was undermined when Biden suddenly turned his back to the audience to shake hands with nobody.
The president was likely expecting someone to appear beside him for the moment, but he remained alone on the stage, looking around, before wandering off stage.
He had also incorrectly stated that he had served as a ‘full professor’ at the University of Pennsylvania despite never teaching a class at the school.
Biden has also had to contend with other slips of the tongue, like when he referred to his new granddaughter as his son, Beau, during his campaign.
Earlier this year, he also mistakenly referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as ‘president’ and had been pictured wandering aimlessly during Barack Obama’s visit to the White House.
The President’s frequent blunders have led to questions about his cognitive abilities and earlier this year 38 Republicans called for him to take a cognitive test.
Republicans have cited Biden’s alleged cognitive decline as the main reason for the current administration’s backtracking over the president’s other recent verbal blunders: first telling US troops in Warsaw, Poland, that they were about to go to Ukraine, before suggesting that the US might engage in using chemical weapons on Russia.
Biden’s off-script gaffes about Putin’s removal and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, have prompted critics to suggest Americans need to ‘invoke the 25th amendment’ to remove the commander in chief from office.
The 25th Amendment, which outlines presidential succession, gives the vice president and Cabinet power to remove the commander in chief from office via a majority vote in the event it’s determined he or she is no longer fit for office. It has never been invoked in US history.
On March 28, Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul took issue with Biden’s use of cue cards to answer reporters’ questions regarding his off-the-cuff remarks about Putin.
Paul questioned Biden’s acuity, saying the aging president’s remarks were a threat to national security.
‘A lot of times when you’re around somebody who’s in cognitive decline, you find yourself trying to help them with a sentence, trying to help them complete it – but we shouldn’t have to do that for the commander-in-chief,’ he told Fox News.
‘And, it is actually a national security risk because he’s sending signals that no one in their right mind would want to send to Russia at this point.
‘We aren’t trying to replace Putin in Russia. We aren’t trying to have regime change.
‘We’re not sending troops into Ukraine, and we’re not going to respond in kind with chemical weapons.’
Georgia Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of Biden’s most vocal critics, said that the US should look from within for regime change instead of calling for other countries to remove their leaders from power.
‘The most needed regime change right now is the one in the United States for ruining our country,’ she tweeted last week.
Several polls show Biden’s approval at a dismal 39 percent and an average from Real Clear Politics has the president averaging a 53.7 percent disapproval rating.
Biden’s last presidential medical examination, carried out last November by his doctor, Kevin O’Connor, found that he was in ‘vigorous’ health.