Former first lady Jill Biden is keeping alive one of the stranger theories surrounding Joe Biden’s disastrous 2024 debate performance, saying she cannot rule out the possibility that something was put in his drink.
During a podcast appearance Thursday, Biden revisited the night that helped blow open the Democratic panic over her husband’s fitness and eventually sent his reelection campaign into a tailspin.
Host Jamie Kern Lima asked whether doctors had ruled out a stroke after the debate.
“Well, they did. They said, I mean, I didn’t say to them, when I was writing my book, I was reflecting, but I didn’t say, ‘God, did Joe have a stroke?’ I just said, ‘Is he OK? Is he OK?’” Biden responded.
Asked what she believed had happened, the former first lady said she still did not have a clear explanation.
“I mean, there’s all kinds of theories — you know, he had been traveling,” she said. “I know he was tired, he didn’t feel well that day, when I saw him, but there was nothing definitive that I could point to.
“And I had been on the road for two weeks up until that moment. So, I wasn’t with him. I didn’t see him days before, weeks before. I saw him maybe one hour before.”
🚨 Jill Biden, still desperately trying to salvage Joe’s legacy, is now saying Joe’s drink could have been “laced” before his CNN debate with Trump:
“Who knows, right? Who knows.” pic.twitter.com/3FrqNcaNjG
— TV News Now (@TVNewsNow) August 21, 2026
Lima then floated an even more dramatic possibility.
“There’s no way anyone could have, God forbid, laced his drink or something?”
“Who knows? Who knows?” Biden responded.
The remark is certain to revive scrutiny of the June 27, 2024, CNN debate in Atlanta, where Biden repeatedly stumbled over answers, appeared to lose his train of thought and delivered a performance so alarming that even loyal Democrats began publicly questioning whether he could remain the party’s nominee.
The debate quickly became one of the defining moments of the election.
Joe Biden‘s weak showing against Donald Trump fueled weeks of pressure from Democratic lawmakers, donors and prominent supporters who demanded that he step aside.
Jill Biden has previously said the performance frightened her because she had never seen her husband act that way before.
“I wasn’t horrified. I was frightened,” Jill Biden recalled in a May interview.
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“I had never ever seen Joe like that before or since,” the first lady said. “I don’t know what happened. As I watched it, I said, ‘Oh my God, he’s having a stroke.’ It scared me to death.”
She said doctors were available and that she was told the president was fine before the couple continued with additional events that night.
“It was like such an aberration,” she added.
The former president’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the latest remarks.
Jill Biden has been revisiting the episode while promoting her memoir, “View from the East Wing,” reopening an uncomfortable chapter that many Democrats would rather leave buried.
The debate fallout ultimately helped pave the way for Biden to abandon his reelection bid, leaving then-Vice President Kamala Harris to take over the Democratic ticket before losing the general election to Donald Trump.
That history has made Jill Biden’s book tour a source of irritation for some Democrats who believe the party gains little by continuing to relitigate the collapse of the 2024 campaign.
Former Biden spokesman Andrew Bates publicly questioned the timing of the renewed discussion.
“I don’t see why that painful conversation for the party needed to be publicly reopened right now.”
Jill Biden fired back.
“I want to say to Andrew: Call me up, and say it to my face, buddy.”
George Washington University professor Matt Dallek said Democrats remain conflicted about the Biden family’s continued public focus on the former president’s final years in office.
“Democrats seem to feel like they’re focused on the past, they’re focused on Trump coming back to power,” Dallek said. “They’re focused on the perceived sense of failure of Biden and his unpopularity as he left office.
“I think that the memoir tour, the various appearances by — whether it’s Jill Biden or Hunter Biden — I think there’s still, you know, a lot of affection for Joe Biden, for the Bidens in the Democratic Party. There’s also, I think, a certain amount of pain associated with the memory of the Biden presidency and especially the last kind of year or two,” he told Fox News Digital in a statement.
Joe Biden is also expected to revisit the 2024 campaign in his own book, which is scheduled for release after the November midterm elections.
