The trip

Biden fell. Now what.

On Thursday in Colorado, this happened:

Biden appeared to trip over a sandbag on stage following his speech to the Air Force Academy. He got up, returned to his seat and appeared generally unharmed.

“He’s fine,” tweeted White House communications director Ben LaBolt. And Biden joked about it — “I got sandbagged,” he said — when he returned back to the White House on Thursday night.

The White House reaction is understandable. They want this to be a non-story, a bit of clumsiness that means absolutely nothing. And they want to shame reporters away from writing about it.

But, two things can be true at the same time:

1. Biden falling isn’t going to cost him the election (or anything close to it)

2. Biden falling adds to the already-extant image of the president as old — and maybe too old for the job he is running for.

This isn’t the first time Biden has fallen — as Republicans (namely Donald Trump) are quick to remind people. Biden fell up the stairs of Air Force One and fell off his bike while vacationing in Delaware.

Here’s the Air Force One stumble:

And the bike mishap:

In a vacuum, who cares. People fall. I am decidedly clumsy — much to my wife’s annoyance — and trip over stuff all the time.

But I am not a) 80 years old b) the president of the United States (yet) or c) seeking a 2nd term as president

Biden is all of those things. Which means these falls don’t happen in a vacuum — and they certainly don’t help Biden and his White House make the case that he is hale and hearty and ready for the job of being president.

We can debate forever whether someone falling over actually tells you anything about their capacity to be president. (I tend to think it doesn’t.) But, in politics, perception IS reality. And if there is already a perception that you are old or infirm, then falling adds to it.

I remember well the 2000 Delaware Senate campaign when Sen. Bill Roth, who was 79 at the time, was running for another term. Roth, like Biden, faced questions about whether he was too old to be in office. And, in one very public episode, he fainted while on camera — a move that effectively doomed his campaign.

And then of course there was the 2016 campaign when Hillary Clinton grew faint — with the cameras rolling — at a September 11 commemoration ceremony and had to be rushed to a waiting car. (Her campaign said she was suffering from pneumonia.)

She recovered and finished the campaign without incident but lost to Trump, who spent weeks — before and after the incident — suggesting that Clinton was covering up a major medical issue. (He provided no evidence to back up those claims.)

What we also know is that the Biden team has long been worried about the president falling or stumbling while in public.

As the New York Times wrote in July 2022 (bolding is mine):

[Aides] acknowledged Mr. Biden looks older than just a few years ago, a political liability that cannot be solved by traditional White House stratagems like staff shake-ups or new communications plans. His energy level, while impressive for a man of his age, is not what it was, and some aides quietly watch out for him. He often shuffles when he walks, and aides worry he will trip on a wire. He stumbles over words during public events, and they hold their breath to see if he makes it to the end without a gaffe.

Look. Biden’s age is THE central issue of his campaign. We know that because a majority of voters (and a plurality of Democrats) tell pollster after pollster that they don’t want Biden to run again — and cite his advanced age as the main reason why.

We have never had a president this old — and certainly never had to consider re-electing someone who will be in their mid 80s by the time 2028 rolls around.

Biden and his team want to make this election about anything other than his age and relative infirmity. They want to talk about Biden’s accomplishments in his first term and what Donald Trump would do to the country if he got into the White House again.

When Biden falls, all of that gets harder. Not impossible by any means — but harder. Because it reinforces an idea already in the public’s mind: This guy is too old for the job.