These are images that go round and round in the United States. President Joe Biden, 80, is "doing well" according to the White House, after falling during a military ceremony Thursday, June 1 in Colorado Springs, in the west of the country. The Democrat, who had just presented diplomas to Air Force Academy students in Colorado, fell forward, landing on his knees and hands, after apparently tripping over a black bag.
" He is fine. There was a sandbag on the stage as he was shaking hands,” his communications director, Ben LaBolt, tweeted. Joe Biden, whose age and physical form are a constant subject of attack by some of his political opponents, then got up with the help of a soldier at his side and his bodyguards.
We saw him pointing to this bag of sand, visibly used to ballast a device on the scene, as if to explain the reason for its fall. The president, candidate for the 2024 election against Republican Donald Trump in particular, attended the end of the ceremony, not seeming to be affected by the fall. He then took the plane back to Washington, and climbed the stairs to board without stopping to respond to the journalists present on the spot.
Back at the White House, the president, smiling, launched a joke, difficult to translate into French, to the press from afar. "I was knocked out," he said. In English, "I got sandbagged", an expression referring to a sandbag in English.
In June 2022, an image of the Democrat falling during a bike ride had already caused a stir. Again, Joe Biden got up and suffered no particular physical consequences. The Democrat's most recent health check, in February, found him to be in good health. But according to polls, the majority of Americans believe he is too old to run for a second term.
His followers rushed to his defense on Twitter. The president "remained standing on the dais shaking hands with graduates for two hours," tweeted his former chief of staff Ron Klain, "no need to panic." "I, for example, have never, but never tripped over anything, not once," quipped his former communications director, Kate Bedingfield.
