President Joe Biden aides worried president would need wheelchair if re-elected, new book reveals

Former President Joe Biden’s aides privately discussed the possibility of the president needing to use a wheelchair if he were re-elected in the 2024 race, as his physical deterioration spiraled in 2023 and 2024, a new book claims. 

“Biden’s physical deterioration — most apparent in his halting walk — had become so severe that there were internal discussions about putting the president in a wheelchair, but they couldn’t do so until after the election,” an upcoming book called “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again” states. 

CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios reporter Alex Thompson authored the upcoming book, which is set to be released Tuesday and is just the latest in a series of recent political books detailing the unprecedented 2024 presidential election, where calls mounted for Biden’s exit due to concerns over his mental acuity and age. 

“Given Biden’s age, (his physician Kevin O’Connor) also privately said that if he had another bad fall, a wheelchair might be necessary for what could be a difficult recovery,” the authors wrote. 

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Concerns over Biden’s physical agility worsened in June 2023, when the president tripped over a sandbag at the Air Force Academy’s graduation ceremony, Axios reported. 

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“He’s fine. There was a sandbag on stage while he was shaking hands,” a White House official posted to X at the time, while critics of the president denounced the fall as “sad” and an example of “elder abuse” of the president. 

Biden’s aides worked to create shorter walking paths for the president — and insisted that he use handrails while walking on staircases and wear sneakers — and took more care in guiding him while in public as the 2024 campaign cycle heated up, Axios reported of the book. 

Biden’s mental acuity had been under conservatives’ microscope since before the 2020 election, with concerns heightening in February 2024 when special counsel Robert Hur, who was investigating Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents as vice president, announced he would not recommend criminal charges against Biden for possessing classified materials after his vice presidency, calling Biden “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” 

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Concern over his mental acuity hit a fever pitch in June 2024, when Biden took the debate stage to face off against then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Biden’s debate performance was seen as a failure, with traditional allies soon joining conservatives in their concern over the president’s health in the context of encouraging Biden to pass the mantle to a younger generation of U.S. leaders. 

Biden dropped out at the end of July 2024, giving his successor for the nomination, former Vice President Kamala Harris, just over 100 days to rally support. Trump and Vice President JD Vance secured the election win after locking down support in the top seven battleground states. 

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A Biden spokesperson told Axios when asked about the claims in the upcoming book that, “Yes, there were physical changes as he got older, but evidence of aging is not evidence of mental incapacity.”

The spokesperson defended that Biden’s “stiffened gait” seen while he was in office was due “in part, by wear and tear to his spine — but that no special treatment was necessary and that it had not worsened.”

“We are still waiting for someone, anyone, to point out where Joe Biden had to make a presidential decision or make a presidential address where he was unable to do his job because of mental decline. In fact, the evidence points to the opposite — he was a very effective president,” the unidentified spokesperson told Fox Digital. 

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Fox News Digital reached out to Biden’s office Tuesday morning for additional comment on the matter but did not immediately receive a reply.