Former First Lady Jill Biden has revealed she feared her husband, then-President Joe Biden, was suffering a stroke as she watched his widely criticized performance in the June 27, 2024, presidential debate against Donald Trump.

In a new interview with CBS News’ Sunday Morning, set to air this weekend, Jill Biden described the moment she watched her husband struggle on stage.

“I thought, ‘Oh my God, he’s having a stroke,’ and it scared me to death,” she said. “Because I had never ever seen Joe like that before or since. Never.”

Biden’s shaky performance — marked by halting speech, confusion, and long pauses — sparked immediate panic within the Democratic Party and ultimately led to him dropping out of the presidential race weeks later.

Despite the visible struggles during the debate, Jill Biden had publicly praised her husband’s performance immediately afterward. At a watch party in Atlanta, she enthusiastically told supporters that Biden had done “such a great job” and had “answered all the questions.”

In the CBS interview, she added, “I don’t know what happened,” while expressing how frightened she was by the unprecedented nature of his demeanor that night.

The comments have reignited discussions about Biden’s fitness during the final months of his presidency and raised questions about the inner circle’s awareness of his condition. No official medical diagnosis of a stroke was ever confirmed, and the White House had previously attributed the debate performance to a cold and exhaustion.

The revelation comes as the Biden family continues to reflect on the turbulent period that ended Joe Biden’s decades-long political career. The full CBS interview is expected to provide further insight into the former First Lady’s perspective on those pivotal moments.