President Donald Trump has explained why he is so cautious when using the stairs on Air Force One.
Trump, who turns 80 next month, spent Monday evening speaking to attendees at his Rose Garden Club dinner, hosted in the newly renovated Rose Garden as part of Police Week.
In a rambling speech that ping-ponged between Trump calling the White House a “S--t House” and bragging about his vanity project ballroom, the president got personal after his obligatory insults about former President Joe Biden.
“Our country was laughed at, disrespected. Our president was disrespected,” Trump said on Monday, discussing Biden’s tenure.
“He couldn’t walk without falling down the damn stairs,” Trump said of Biden, who was 78 when he tripped and fell three times while walking up the stairs of Air Force One in March 2021.
Officials attributed the fall to high winds and a “misstep” by Biden, who at the time was a year younger than Trump is now.
“Some people thought it was funny,” Trump said of Biden’s fall. “I didn’t like it. I didn’t like watching it. (He) should have never been there.”
Trump then explained his own timid gait when entering or exiting Air Force One, blaming his usual target, the media.
“I’m very careful when I walk, by the way, because if I ever fall... the fake news ... they’re going to have... that headline will go on for years.”
He added, “You know, sometimes like I walk out of the plane... I’m not looking to set any records. You go nice and easy.”
Trump’s statement about his glacial speed on the presidential air stairs was almost identical to one he gave CNBC’s Squawk Box three weeks ago.
“We were a dead country,” he told host Joe Kernen. “We had a guy that wasn’t respected. We had a country that was laughed at. He couldn’t walk up a flight of stairs, forget about down. He couldn’t walk up a flight, but he was falling all over the place.”
Trump continued, “I have to be careful because if I do trip or fall, it’s got to be the biggest (story). That’s why when I get out of those planes, I walk nice and slowly. I’m not looking to set any speed records.”
Trump wheeled out the same excuse for his senior pace as he christened The Dan Bongino Show in February.
Trump referred to Biden as “a guy falling up the stairs, going into an airplane.”
“I gotta be very careful going in,” Trump said of his own entry to Air Force One. “Ever noticed how slowly I am these days? Nice and slowly, I’m not looking to set any records. You don’t wanna go down. Could happen, could happen.”
Trump was filmed stumbling on the stairs of Air Force One during a visit to New Jersey in June last year.
Trump has been spotted clinging to the banisters of Air Force One and descending the stairs at a snail’s pace, while his bruised hands and swollen ankles have sparked conjecture over his health.
The president was spotted appearing to doze off in the Oval Office on Monday, although the White House claimed he was actually blinking.
On Bongino’s podcast in February, the president almost complimented Biden for his three falls on the Air Force One stairs and quick recovery in 2021, saying, “It’s probably the only thing I respected and yet it didn’t look elegant at all.”
Trump added, “I kept waiting for him to fall and he didn’t... but I was impressed with his, uh, ability to go down the stairs like that.”
