President Donald Trump is speaking out after former First Lady Jill Biden said that she thought then-President Joe Biden may have had a stroke or was even drugged on debate night in June 2024.
Biden’s debate performance accelerated questions about his age and mental fitness to serve a second term as president, which led to his exit from the race and quick endorsement of then-Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic nomination on July 21, 2024.
“Jill Biden is now out there finally admitting that she did NOT know what went wrong with Sleepy Joe during our spectacular, and highly rated, 2024 Presidential Debate, where Joe was not exactly performing to the highest level of debate standards,” Trump posted to Truth Social on Friday morning.
“She said that she thought he was having a ‘stroke,’ and various other really bad things, and yet never rushed onto the stage to help her troubled husband, as any good wife would do,” he continued.
Trump quipped that “the only thing she failed to mention was how well I was doing prior to his near total collapse.”
“In other words, as many have asked, did my strong performance in that debate cause him to plain and simple 'choke,' leading to his ignominious defeat, or were other reasons the cause? Nobody else knows the answer to that, BUT I DO!!!” Trump added.
Jill Biden’s candid remarks came only this week, as her memoir, “View from the East Wing,” will come out next month.
"I wasn’t horrified, I was frightened,” the former First Lady said during a CBS interview expected to air in full on Sunday. The former president was 81 years old at the time.
"I had never, ever seen Joe like that before or since. I don’t know what happened. As I watched it, I said, ‘Oh my God, he’s having a stroke.’ It scared me to death,” she continued.
In her upcoming book, she also wrote that she wondered if he had “been drugged,” The Atlantic reported.
Jill Biden to CBS on the 2024 debate: “I was frightened because I had never seen Joe like that... I thought he was having a stroke."
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) May 27, 2026
Jill Biden immediately after the debate in 2024: "Joe, you did such a great job. You answered every question. You knew all the facts!" pic.twitter.com/9wVu1s3q6E
The former First Lady also explained her frustration with her husband’s stage IV prostate cancer diagnosis, which came about a few months after he left office.
“Joe couldn’t stub his toe without 10 people wanting to run at him waving bales of gauze,” she wrote, according to the Associated Press. “You put the president in bubble wrap, and he ends up with stage IV prostate cancer? It made no sense.”