Many Democrats — including former Biden aides — “simply don’t believe” Jill Biden’s stunning claim that she feared President Joe Biden was having a stroke during the disastrous 2024 debate, according to a political journalist.
Alex Thompson, an Axios reporter who co-authored “Original Sin” with Jake Tapper, the 2025 book about Biden’s mental decline and its cover-up, cast doubt on the former first lady’s attempt to “rewrite this portion of history” during an appearance on CNN Thursday.
“Well, a lot of Democrats, including several Biden aides that I’ve talked to since yesterday when this interview came out, just simply don’t believe her,” Thompson said.
He recounted that after Biden’s pitiful debate performance against former President Donald Trump, Jill and Joe Biden held a rally, where Jill cheered “four more years,” and visited a Waffle House, before flying overnight to North Carolina, where he had two rallies back to back.
“A lot of former Biden aides have told me if you really believed he might be having a stroke, that’s not necessarily the same behavior that you would do,” Thompson said.
“There’s no evidence that there was any significant medical exam afterward. There was never a cognitive test afterward.”
In a “CBS Sunday Morning” preview clip released Wednesday, Jill Biden discussed her husband’s catastrophic debate — in which he stumbled over his words and repeatedly lost his train of thought — and admitted to her concerns for the first time.
“I wasn’t horrified, I was frightened. Because I had never, ever seen Joe like that, before or since,” Jill told CBS News correspondent Rita Braver in the snippet.
“I don’t know what happened. I mean, as I watched it, I thought, ‘Oh my God, he’s having a stroke.’ And it scared me to death.”
The interview has sent shockwaves through the Democratic Party, after the Biden administration had vehemently dismissed claims of Biden’s mental decline while he was in office.
“A lot of Democrats think that this is simply unhelpful to come out at this moment and try to rewrite this portion of history,” Thompson said during his CNN appearance.
“Many of the top Biden aides, the loyalist aides … They’ve gone before Congress and said, ‘It was only a few bad answers. The debate was not that bad and the Democratic Party overreacted,’” he continued.
“And then for the former first lady to come in and say that she was frightened and that she thought her husband, the president, might have been having a stroke — you know, I have to say that there is a significant skepticism that she is trying to rewrite this narrative right now.”
