{"id":10293,"date":"2026-05-28T21:32:26","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T21:32:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=10293"},"modified":"2026-05-28T21:32:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T21:32:26","slug":"in-new-memoir-jill-biden-wonders-whether-acknowledging-joes-poor-debate-would-have-been-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=10293","title":{"rendered":"In new memoir, Jill Biden wonders whether acknowledging Joe\u2019s poor debate would have been better"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE<\/strong><\/p>\n

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 In her new memoir, former first lady Jill Biden reflects on former President Joe Biden\u2019s poor debate performance against Donald Trump nearly two years ago and wonders whether it would have been better to acknowledge it rather than reassure supporters afterward.<\/p>\n

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The Democrat\u2019s performance ultimately proved to be his undoing as he campaigned for reelection by amplifying concerns about whether the then-81-year-old could serve a second term. He ultimately dropped his bid under pressure from within his party and endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris, who lost to the Republican Trump.<\/p>\n

In \u201cView from the East Wing,\u201d a memoir about her White House years that\u2019s being published next Tuesday, she said she still doesn\u2019t know why her husband performed so disastrously that day.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press obtained a copy of the book\u2019s 274-page manuscript, which includes her first public comments about the debate and the ensuing chain of events that sent Joe Biden back to private life in Delaware sooner than he had envisioned.<\/p>\n

The book also covers his prostate cancer diagnosis after leaving office and their son Hunter\u2019s federal trial on gun charges, among other issues during Joe Biden\u2019s term, along with how she juggled the added responsibilities of being first lady with her teaching career.<\/p>\n

Jill Biden writes that her husband \u201clooked bleary\u201d in their hotel suite in Atlanta before the debate. She was confident he would do well, she said, because big events energized him. But when the CNN-sponsored event began, \u201cI immediately noticed that Joe didn\u2019t look good. He didn\u2019t seem himself from the opening.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few minutes in, he said something out of turn about \u201cwe finally beat Medicare.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

\u201cIs he short-circuiting? I thought,\u201d she wrote. \u201cIs this a stroke? It felt like we were watching an AI hologram of the man we knew, and the hologram was glitching.\u201d<\/p>\n

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She wondered if he had been drugged or was experiencing a medical emergency.<\/p>\n

He improved as the debate went on, \u201cbut not enough to reassure me or anyone watching that he was okay. He clearly wasn\u2019t,\u201d Jill Biden said. \u201cI\u2019d never seen that look on his face before in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

As they walked off stage afterward, he used colorful language to whisper to her that he had messed up, which she took as a \u201csign of his having returned to himself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

But \u201cto this day, I still don\u2019t know what happened,\u201d she wrote. They attended a post-debate rally and dropped in at a Waffle House before traveling to North Carolina for a next-day appearance.<\/p>\n

The official explanation at the time from the White House and others close to the president was that he was suffering from a cold. But Jill Biden said she wonders if they should have acknowledged what millions of people saw \u2014 \u201cthat he looked very unwell in that debate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest lesson for us, I think, was that if you don\u2019t explain something well enough then the question won\u2019t go away,\u201d she wrote. \u201cThere was never a satisfying enough explanation offered for Joe\u2019s debate performance, and a lot of people never got over it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Biden\u2019s performance in the debate crystallized the concerns of many voters that he was too old to continue serving as president. It sparked a fresh round of calls for him to consider stepping aside as the party\u2019s nominee as fellow Democrats feared a Trump return to the White House if Biden remained as their candidate.<\/p>\n

The drumbeat of calls for him to leave the race started before the debate had ended and, \u201cin the days to come, it would grow louder and louder,\u201d Jill Biden wrote.<\/p>\n

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In her new memoir, Jill Biden reflects on Joe Biden’s poor 2024 presidential debate performance against Donald Trump. 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