Geraldo Rivera torches Jill Biden, says Joe's 2024 debate performance was 'disqualifying'

WASHINGTON, DC: Veteran television personality Geraldo Rivera on Thursday, May 28, sharply criticized former First Lady Jill Biden while revisiting former President Joe Biden’s disastrous 2024 debate performance against President Donald Trump.

Days after Jill Biden opened up on the debate, Rivera questioned why concerns about Biden’s condition were only being openly acknowledged now, arguing the moment was so alarming that many viewers immediately believed the president was suffering a serious medical episode on live television.

Geraldo Rivera questions Jill Biden's delayed admission

Reacting to Jill Biden’s recent comments about fearing her husband was “having a stroke” during the debate, Rivera said the explanation raised even more questions about how the situation had been handled publicly afterward.

“My first response when I saw former First Lady Jill Biden was, where the hell have you been, and why now is this so urgent and so obvious?” Rivera said.

He suggested that many political figures and media voices were now attempting to distance themselves from what viewers had already witnessed months earlier. “It just seems to me that people are trying to cover their tracks,” he added.

Rivera said Biden's appearance during the debate shocked people watching in real time and insisted concerns about the former president’s mental condition were widespread immediately after the event aired.

“There was not a person watching, not in my friend circle anyway, who did not think he was having a stroke,” Rivera said.

He described the debate performance as deeply unsettling and said he personally viewed it as politically devastating for Biden’s campaign. “I thought it was disqualifying right there,” Rivera remarked. “I had never seen anything like it. It was gut-wrenching.”

Rivera also reflected emotionally on the moment, noting Biden is only slightly older than him.

“He’s only eight months older than I am,” Rivera said. “I said, ‘Oh my God, is this what the future holds?’”

He further argued that the seriousness of the debate's performance was gradually softened in subsequent public discussion. “What was also surprising was how, over time it was kind of sanitized and cleaned up,” Rivera said.

Jill Biden's shocking admission

Rivera’s comments came after Jill Biden revealed in a clip from a CBS interview that she became frightened while watching Joe Biden struggle during the June 2024 presidential debate in Atlanta.

According to Jill Biden, she worried at the time that her husband could be suffering a medical emergency as he stumbled through answers, paused repeatedly and spoke in a raspy voice during the event.

At one point during the debate, Biden delivered the widely discussed line, “We finally beat Medicare,” before his campaign later clarified that he intended to reference lowering prescription drug costs and taking on “big pharma.”

Trump seized on the moment immediately during the debate, responding: “I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said either.”

Despite the backlash at the time, Jill Biden publicly defended her husband immediately after the debate, praising him by saying, “Joe, you did such a great job. You answered every question. You knew all the facts.”