Former First Lady Jill Biden said she was “frightened” while watching former President Joe Biden struggle through his disastrous June 2024 debate against President Donald Trump, revealing she briefly feared he was suffering a stroke on stage.

In an interview with CBS News’ Rita Braver, scheduled to air Sunday on CBS News Sunday Morning, Jill Biden described the debate performance as unlike anything she had ever seen from her husband.

“I was frightened, because I had never ever seen Joe like that before or since. Never,” she said.

The remarks offer one of the clearest personal accounts yet of the night that dramatically altered the 2024 presidential race and intensified concerns about Biden’s age and health among Democratic voters and party leaders.

The debate, hosted in Atlanta on June 27, 2024, quickly triggered panic within Democratic circles after Biden appeared raspy, struggled to finish his thoughts, and at times lost his train of thought while debating Trump. Within days, prominent Democrats, donors and media figures publicly questioned whether Biden should remain at the top of the ticket.

Jill Biden told Braver that her reaction to the unfolding debate was immediate and deeply personal.

“I don’t know what happened,” she said. “As I watched it, I thought, ‘Oh, my God, he’s having a stroke.’ And it scared me to death.”

Biden initially resisted calls to drop out of the race and repeatedly insisted he was capable of serving another term. But pressure inside the Democratic Party continued to mount through July as polling numbers slipped and concerns about his debate performance dominated national headlines.

On July 21, 2024, Biden announced he was ending his reelection campaign and endorsed then-Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee. The decision came just 107 days before the general election and marked the first time a sitting president abandoned a reelection campaign since President Lyndon B. Johnson stepped aside in 1968.

The CBS interview is part of Jill Biden’s media tour for her upcoming memoir, View from the East Wing: A Memoir, which reflects on her years in the White House and the political turbulence surrounding the 2024 election cycle.

The former first lady remained one of Biden’s strongest public defenders throughout the fallout from the debate, often appearing beside him at campaign events in the weeks before he withdrew from the race.

At one rally shortly after the debate, she praised her husband for continuing to fight politically despite widespread criticism.

Still, her latest comments underscore how alarming the moment appeared even to those closest to him.

The interview is expected to reignite discussion surrounding Biden’s decision to remain in the race after the debate and whether Democratic leaders reacted too slowly to mounting voter concerns.