President-elect Joe Biden challenged people to pushups and would jog up to the microphone at rallies during the campaign to counter questions about his age.
But those efforts were almost squandered on Sunday when Biden, 78, slipped while playing with one of his German shepherds in Delaware over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.
After a lengthy visit to an orthopedic specialist, with X-rays and other scans, the oldest incoming president in history was found to have only sprained an ankle. Yet his right foot will be in a walking boot for “several weeks” as hairline fractures heal, according to his doctor, Kevin O’Connor.
On social media, comparisons were quickly drawn between the incident and the series premiere of the TV series The West Wing, in which fictional President Jed Bartlet cycles into a cypress tree.
But in reality, Biden is one of a handful of presidents, or president-elects, to have suffered an embarrassing mishap.
Former President Bill Clinton, for instance, twisted his knee in 1997 as he left golfer Greg Norman’s Florida home following what a White House spokeswoman described as a late-night advice session regarding his game. He was rushed on a stretcher to a nearby hospital for tests but didn’t break any bones.
For historian and author David Pietrusza, speculation that hefty William Howard Taft got stuck in a bathtub during his 1909-1913 tenure can’t be verified, though he had special basins made to fit his portly 350-pound frame. Yet Pietrusza had plenty of other examples of presidential clumsiness.
“Gerald Ford, of course, was famous for his pratfalls, mercilessly lampooned by Saturday Night Live’s Chevy Chase, starting with a fall down airplane steps while visiting Austria in 1975,” he told the Washington Examiner.
Ford was, in fact, an All-American University of Michigan football player and an avid skier. Secret Service agents reportedly struggled to keep up with him on the slopes.
Ford’s predecessor, Richard Nixon, banged his knee on a car door in 1960 at a North Carolina event during his first presidential bid. The injury got infected, taking the then-vice president off the trail for two weeks. He then hurt the same knee while getting out of his vehicle in Chicago before his first, sweaty debate against John F. Kennedy.
“Greeting JFK just a few minutes later, he arose from a chair and hit his head on an overhead microphone,” Pietrusza added. “Said CBS President Frank Stanton: ‘It sounded like somebody dropped a watermelon. It was terrible.'”
Other presidential accidents haven’t had the same level of levity, including one involving Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Philadelphia.
“At 1936’s Democratic convention, as FDR headed for the podium to deliver his ‘Rendezvous with Destiny’ acceptance speech, a pin dislodged itself from one of his leg braces,” Pietrusza said of the president with polio. “He tumbled toward the ground. His aides surrounded him and prevented the crowd or the press from seeing him before the pin snapped back into place.”
While Biden’s transition team kept his pool of traveling press abreast of the basic facts concerning his condition this weekend, staff wrangling reporters also shielded the two-term vice president and 36-year Delaware senator.
“Your pooler and others asked repeatedly to get off the van to be in position to see the president-elect depart but were denied without explanation other than ‘we’re not getting off the bus,'” Philadelphia Inquirer journalist Jonathan Tamari wrote as the media waited during Biden’s orthopedic appointment.
Presidents — from Roosevelt to Kennedy, as well as Woodrow Wilson, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan, even President Trump — have, to differing extents and success, tried to hide medical issues from the public.
Reagan, the oldest president to leave office before Biden, was rumored to have had dementia during his 1980 campaign. He wasn’t diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease until 1994.
“Reagan was nearsighted, was shot, had Dupuytren’s contracture, colon cancer, skin cancer, and, of course, Alzheimer’s,” Reagan biographer Craig Shirley said. “He also once cut his thigh with a chainsaw.”
Both Wilson and Eisenhower had strokes as president, Shirley continued. Edith Wilson, the then-first lady, exerted more influence after Wilson’s health deteriorated, controlling the flow of information between her partially paralyzed husband and his Cabinet.
“Ike had at least one heart attack, Crohn’s disease, a stroke, and a terrible digestive system,” he said. “He also smoked several packs a day of Lucky Strikes, which his doctor made him stop and take up painting to relieve the stress in his life.”
Biden’s transition told the press at 10:30 a.m. EST there would be no open, reportable events Monday, known as a “lid.” He and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris were expected to receive their first presidential daily intelligence briefing, briefings delayed as Trump continues to challenge the election’s results. A spokesman said arrangements were made for Biden to be examined Sunday, so his Monday schedule wouldn’t be disrupted.
