Jill Biden has opened up about backing former President Joe Biden’s presidential re-election bid in 2024 despite a disastrous debate performance in which she thought he might have had a medical emergency.
The former first lady spoke with Craig Melvin on TODAY on Monday about her new book, “View From the West Wing: A Memoir,” in which she writes about supporting her husband’s candidacy after a debate performance against Donald Trump in June 2024 that ultimately led him to drop out of the race.
Melvin asked whether she would have encouraged him to run for re-election if she had the ability to go back in time.
“As I look back, would I want to put Joe through the hurt and the pain that we felt during that time? Never,” she said. “It was so hurtful. It had to be his decision. It had to be his decision alone because he had to live with that decision the rest of his life.”
Jill Biden said at an event in the immediate aftermath of the debate that her husband’s performance was “great” and said he “answered every question.” However, Biden’s showing in the debate raised questions about his cognitive ability.
“My mind is racing. What do I say to him? What do I say to him?” Jill Biden said on TODAY about the immediate aftermath of the debate. “I’m his wife. I’ve got to lift him up.
“I’m not going to get out there on the stage and say, ‘Joe, you really screwed that up,’” she added. “And we have all our supporters there. That’s who we are. I had to support him. I couldn’t come out and really publicly say, ‘Joe, you did a terrible job in that debate.’”
Former Vice President Kamala Harris, who became the Democratic presidential nominee after Biden dropped out, wrote in her memoir that she did not believe he exited the race due to mental “incapacity.”
“‘It’s Joe and Jill’s decision.’ We all said that, like a mantra, as if we’d all been hypnotized,” Harris wrote in her 2025 book, “107 Days.” The title of her book came from the fact that Joe Biden dropped his re-election bid 107 days before the 2024 presidential election.
The former president has defended himself against accusations of cognitive and memory issues. He sued the Justice Department on May 26 to block the release of recordings and transcripts of private conversations with the ghostwriter of his 2017 memoir.
In a report about allegations that Joe Biden, 83, mishandled classified materials, former special counsel Robert Hur wrote that the former president had memory issues, which was denied by the White House. Audio of Hur interviewing Joe Biden, which came to light in 2025, confirmed the described lapses.
In May 2025, the former president responded to a new book that examined his mental fitness for office and his team’s response to public concern about his health during the 2024 presidential campaign. In the book, titled “Original Sin,” journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson wrote that Joe Biden didn’t recognize George Clooney, whom he had known for years, at an event.
“They are wrong,” Joe Biden responded in an interview on ABC’s “The View,” per NBC News. “There’s nothing to sustain that.”
Joe Biden also shared in May 2025 that he had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer. He underwent five weeks of radiation treatment after also enduring skin cancer surgery in September 2025.
Jill Biden said on TODAY that the prostate cancer has since spread to his bones. “He’s doing OK,” she added.
“I think if he had just been diagnosed with prostate cancer, that’s one thing because that can be cured, but the fact that it metastasized to his bones, that makes it a whole different story. And so I think Joe will live with cancer till the rest of his life.”
