Former First Lady Jill Biden couldn’t sleep after watching her husband stumble through his disastrous June 2024 debate against Donald Trump.

The early debate, pushed for by both campaigns, left Democrats in a panic and set off weeks of party infighting that ended with Joe Biden’s withdrawal. The former First Lady released a memoir on Tuesday detailing her time in the White House and defending her husband against concerns of his fitness while he was in office. (RELATED: Jill Biden Seemingly Knew About October 7 Attack Before Joe Did)

Jill Biden admitted in her memoir that her husband had gotten older, was “tired more often,” and had some “uncomfortable moments” over the years. Despite that, the former first lady thought that didn’t disqualify him from the presidency.

Below is an excerpt from Jill Biden’s memoir:

Every morning in the following weeks, before I was fully awake, I had the feeling that something awful had happened. As I opened my eyes and sat up, I remembered what it was – the debate. Joe’s performance had scared people into believing that he was suffering from a profound cognitive decline and that he wasn’t mentally fit to be president.

Former First Lady Jill Biden @DrBiden says ‘hell was freezing over’ on her and former President @JoeBiden’s final day in the White House, which was the day of President @realdonaldtrump’s inauguration pic.twitter.com/gYvAicmKh6

— Nicholas A Ballasy (@NicholasBallasy) June 4, 2026

To me, and to those who spent the most time with him, the man on that stage was not who we saw on a daily basis. Yes, he was older. He seemed tired more often. But Joe’s closest advisors said the campaign remained viable, and they insisted that Joe owed it to the country to stay in the race.

Over the years, there had been uncomfortable moments, to be sure. I flinched when Joe said, at the White House press conference after the Hur Report was released, ‘The president of Mexico, Sisi, did not want to open the gate to allow humanitarian material to get in.’ He meant ‘the president of Egypt.’ The truth was that he was not performing as well as he had in his younger days. Did that disqualify him from being president, as long as he was still getting the job done? I didn’t think so, nor did the staff members who were spending far more time with him than I was.

The optimistic thinking was that enough voters would say, ‘Okay, he’s old, but he’s been doing a good job. There’s a young vice president. If during his second term he gets to the point where he needs to hand over power, the worst-case scenario would still be good.’

If you knew Joe Biden well, you’d know that if he actually got to the point where he wasn’t capable of doing the job, he would step down. Certainly, if he exhibited cognitive impairment, I would not hesitate to say so. His staff would not hesitate to say so. But he was nowhere near that point in the summer of 2024.

US President Joe Biden kisses the head of US First Lady Jill Biden at the end of their visit to the International African American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina, on January 19, 2025. (Photo by ROBERTO SCHMIDT / AFP) (Photo by ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images)

The former first lady’s media tour to promote her book has generated headlines about her husband’s health while he was in office. In her first interview, which she did with CBS News, the former first lady said she thought Biden was having a stroke while on the debate stage.

Social media users were quick to point out that the former first lady took Biden to Waffle House for a campaign stop after the debate. She has been pressed throughout her media tour on why she would do such a thing if she truly thought her husband was having a stroke.

“But publicly, of course, you said that he did well, you cheered him on that evening. What do you say to people who today wonder if you thought that then, that something, a medical episode had happened. Did you recommend that he go? Did you recommend that he go to a doctor?” MSNBC’s Morning Joe host asked the former first lady about the moments after the 2024 debate.

“I have a team of doctors around me as first lady. Joe had a team of doctors around him. So, when I saw that, and I was frightened, I was, you know, scared to death to see that, and, but the doctors were there,” the former first lady stated. She noted that her husband believed he had messed up when he exited the stage.

“And then we got off the stage, and you know, I went to get my stuff. He was checked out by the doctors. They said he’s fine. We went on to do three more events that night and Joe was like he always was, and so to me, as I look back, I mean that was so inexplicable. I just to this day it’s just inexplicable,” she continued.