{"id":12781,"date":"2023-06-02T04:15:40","date_gmt":"2023-06-02T09:15:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=12781"},"modified":"2023-06-02T04:15:55","modified_gmt":"2023-06-02T09:15:55","slug":"biden-says-he-got-sandbagged-after-he-tripped-and-fell-onstage-at-air-force-graduation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=12781","title":{"rendered":"Biden says he got \u2018sandbagged\u2019 after he tripped and fell onstage at Air Force graduation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

 President Joe Biden quipped that he got \u201csandbagged\u201d Thursday after he tripped and fell \u2014 but was uninjured \u2014 while onstage at the U.S. Air Force Academy graduation<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biden had been greeting the graduates in Colorado Springs, Colorado, at the front of the stage with salutes and handshakes, and turned to jog back toward his seat when he fell. He was helped up by an Air Force officer as well as two members of his U.S. Secret Service detail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Onlookers, including some members of the official delegation onstage, watched in concern before Biden, who at age 80 is the oldest president in U.S. history, returned to his seat to view the end of the ceremony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI got sandbagged,\u201d the president told reporters with a smile when he arrived back at the White House on Thursday evening before pretending to jog into the residence. Two small black sandbags had been onstage supporting the teleprompter used by Biden and other speakers at the graduation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe\u2019s fine,\u201d White House communications director Ben LaBolt tweeted after the incident. \u201cThere was a sandbag on stage while he was shaking hands.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biden has been dogged by questions about his age and his fitness to serve, and his missteps have become fodder for political rivals as he campaigns for a second term in 2024. He has stumbled before going up the stairs and onto Air Force One and he once got caught up in his bike pedals<\/a> while stopping to talk to reporters near his home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biden\u2019s personal doctor said after the president\u2019s most recent physical exam<\/a> in February that Biden \u201cremains a healthy, vigorous 80-year-old male, who is fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency.\u201d Dr. Kevin O\u2019Connor also documented the president\u2019s stiffened gait, which O\u2019Connor said was the result of spinal arthritis, a previously broken foot and neuropathy in the Biden\u2019s feet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biden is far from the first national political figure to stumble in public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Gerald Ford fell down while walking off Air Force One<\/a> in 1975. GOP Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas, the GOP presidential nominee at the time, fell off the stage<\/a> at a campaign rally in 1996. President Barack Obama tripped walking up the stairs to a stage at a 2012 event. \u201cI was so fired up, I missed a stair\u201d he told the crowd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Donald Trump\u2019s gingerly walk down a ramp at the 2020 West Point commencement also sparked concerns about his health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump, 76, was campaigning in Iowa when he heard about Biden\u2019s stumble and alluded to his own episode.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe actually fell down? Well I hope he wasn\u2019t hurt,\u201d Trump said after an audience member told him about what had happened to Biden. \u201cThe whole thing is crazy. You gotta be careful about that … \u2019cause you don\u2019t want that, even if you have to tiptoe down a ramp.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The audience laughed as Trump recounted slowly inching his way down what he said had been a slippery ramp at the U.S. Military Academy graduation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf he fell, it\u2019s too bad,\u201d the former president said. \u201cWe gotta just get this thing back on track. That\u2019s a bad place to fall when you\u2019re making, I think it was the Air Force Academy, right? That\u2019s not inspiring.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, GOP presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis used the opportunity to take a political shot at Biden while at a campaign event in New Hampshire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe hope and wish Joe Biden a swift recovery from any injuries he may have sustained,\u201d he said, \u201cbut we also wish the United States of America a swift recovery from the injuries it has sustained because of Joe Biden and his policies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

 President Joe Biden quipped that he got \u201csandbagged\u201d Thursday after he tripped and fell \u2014 but was uninjured \u2014 while onstage at the U.S. Air Force Academy graduation. Biden had been greeting the graduates in Colorado Springs, Colorado, at the front of the stage with salutes and handshakes, and turned to jog back toward his seat […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":12782,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7747,7746,1169,4845,7745],"class_list":["post-12781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-age","tag-air-force-graduate","tag-biden","tag-fall","tag-political-attack"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12781"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12783,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12781\/revisions\/12783"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}