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Joe Biden’s supporters were tempting fate by claiming he got it right in his first two months in office.
On Friday, the US president managed to fall not once, not twice, but three times while climbing a flight of stairs to the Presidential Air Force One plane.
A White House spokesman blamed the windy weather.
The triple stumble came as Biden, at 78, the oldest person ever to be elected US president, left for Atlanta from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland.
About halfway up the red carpeted stairs, Biden could be seen losing his footing before tripping three times, eventually ending up on his left knee while still holding the railing with his right hand.
The president stood up, rubbed his left knee and climbed the rest of the stairs before turning around and greeting the US Marines who had flown him by helicopter to the airport from the White House.
Officials insisted that no damage had been done. Karine Jean-Pierre, the deputy press secretary of the White House, told reporters on Air Force One: “There is a lot of wind. I almost fell down the stairs myself. He is 100% fine. “
When asked if the president had been checked by a doctor, Jean-Pierre replied, “I’m coming – all I know is – I can tell you he’s fine. He is doing very well.
The incident brought back concerns last November when Biden broke his foot after slipping while playing with his pet dog, a German Shepherd called Major.
His notorious verbal blunders – this week he accidentally referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as “President Harris” – were also taken up by Conservatives as evidence of an age-related decline.
Donald Trump Jr, the son of the former president, tweeted sarcastically on Biden’s fall: “Don’t mind the fact that the President of the United States is so frail that he has been repeatedly knocked down by a gust of wind. Nothing at all to see here, guys!
Trump Jr too tweeted a parody video in which his father hits a golf ball that flies through the air and hits Biden over the head, knocking him down. “It was not the people of the wind,” he added.
But Biden isn’t the only one taking the risk of having TV cameras watching his every move. Mike Pence, the former vice president, tripped while walking up the stairs of Air Force Two last June.
That same month, Donald Trump cautiously descended a ramp at the US Military Academy at West Point, later explaining that he knew a fall would be exploited by watching the media.
Jeffrey Wright, actor and activist, tweeted: “I don’t care if Joe Biden stumbles on the stone of the stairs of Air Force One drunk after a sleepless night, as long as he continues to beat Covid with this vaccine deployment.
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