Joe Biden Should Be Escorted Up and Down Stairs to Avoid Slipping—Attorney

Joe Biden should be helped by aides as he gets on and off Air Force One, a Republican-aligned attorney has suggested, after footage emerged of the president appearing to slip on a step as he alighted from the plane in Michigan.

Seemingly the latest in a number of trip-ups that the 80-year-old president has had in public, Biden was caught on camera appearing to slip on one of the plane's built-in steps, lurching slightly backwards to regain his balance, after touching down in Detroit to join a picket line of striking automobile workers.

As NPR noted recently, Biden has been increasingly using the so-called short stairs of Air Force One, which fold out from the plane's fuselage, instead of longer ones that come decked in red carpet and have to be rolled up to the plane—which the president has slipped up on several times.

The White House brushed off questions from the publication, suggesting the decision to use one set of steps over the other was based on security, weather and the availability of the separate staircases. But some suspect the move may be to spare his blushes.

"These are the small stairs on Air Force One. And Biden is still almost falling down them," Mike Davis, former chief nominations counsel to ex-Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, who was honored by the Republican National Lawyers Association for his work in 2019, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Tuesday.

He added: "Biden's military aides should escort him up and down stairs. He is going to fall again. And hurt himself badly. That would be a terrible look for the President of the United States."

Newsweek approached the White House via email for comment on Wednesday.

Less than two months after he was inaugurated in 2021, a viral video showed him struggling to make it up the stairs of Air Force One. Footage showed Biden falling three times as he attempted to board the plane. The White House blamed the fall on the wind.

The president made headlines again when he was seen tripping on the plane stairs as he left Warsaw, Poland, after a surprise meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in February.

The video emerged a day after social media users speculated that Biden had fallen down the same set of steps when arriving in the Eastern European nation. Footage provided by ABC News showed that Biden had walked down the stairs while remaining upright, and a White House spokesperson told Newsweek that the person who fell was not the president.

In July, Biden appeared to stumble while walking up the steps to Air Force One, just days after a sign reading "watch your step" was spotted on them.

"You don't measure presidents by their ability to navigate steps," David Axelrod, a political strategist, told NPR, defending Biden. "You elect presidents based on their ability to navigate problems."

It's not just the Air Force One stairs that Biden has had a problem with. In June, the president fell over a sandbag while handing out diplomas at a U.S. Air Force Academy graduation in Colorado Springs, prompting questions as to why it was placed there.

Already the oldest serving president in U.S. history, Biden has faced ongoing concerns about his age and mental acuity, but he has brushed off queries about his physical and mental health, stating in 2022: "I no more think of myself as being as old as I am than a fly."

In February, Dr. Kevin O'Connor, the president's physician, said that though Biden had a "stiffened gait," he "remains fit for duty, and fully executes all of his responsibilities without any exemptions or accommodations."