President Biden stumbled slightly while taking the steps to Air Force One last Thursday as he was leaving Helsinki for the United States, the Washington Examiner reported.
But unlike his more notable “trip” up the steps to Air Force One in 2021 when he fell three times, this time, the president only stumbled briefly before quickly regaining his composure.
The 80-year-old president has had several very public stumbles since taking office, most recently during the US Air Force Academy graduation when he tripped over a sandbag and fell to the ground.
The president suffered a humiliating fall from his bike last summer after his foot got caught on the pedal.
While last Thursday’s slight stumble pales in comparison to his previous mishaps, it was already clear during his final press conference in Helsinki that the octogenarian Biden was exhausted from his weeklong European trip, which included stops in the UK, Lithuania, and Finland, NATO’s newest member country.
During the joint press conference with Finnish President Sauli Niinistö, the exhausted Biden inadvertently referred to Iceland Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir as a “daughter of Ireland,” but quickly caught his mistake, telling reporters that he must have been “thinking of home.”
Later in the press conference, Biden got angry with Finnish reporter Iida Tikka after she pointed out that some US politicians oppose the US’s membership with NATO and asked him what he would do to assure Finland that the US would “remain a reliable NATO partner for decades to come.”
Biden said he “absolutely” guarantees it and said there is “overwhelming support” for the alliance in Congress and among the American public. Biden added that while it is impossible to “guarantee the future,” the US’s continued commitment to NATO was “the best bet anyone could make.”
Given Biden’s inability to guarantee the US’s continued commitment, Tikka asked President Niinistö if he is concerned that the “political instability” in the United States might “cause issues” for NATO in the future.
An angry President Biden cut in, telling Tikka that he didn’t say that the US didn’t guarantee it. He said he “couldn’t guarantee the future.” Biden explained that he was as certain as it is possible to be when dealing with US foreign policy that the US will “stay connected to NATO.”
