Former president Joe Biden fell asleep poolside during a prep session ahead of his disastrous June debate with Donald Trump, according to the author of a new book on the 2024 election.
“At one point … Biden wanders out in the middle of the session, he wanders out to the pool, collapses into a lounge chair, and falls sound asleep,” author Chris Whipple told Fox News host Jesse Watters on Wednesday, one day after releasing his book Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History. The moment, Whipple said, was recounted by Ron Klain, Biden’s former chief of staff who returned in June to help the octogenarian prepare for the high-stakes debate.
.@CCWhip: During a debate prep session, a confused @JoeBiden wandered outside, fell in the pool, collapsed into a lawn chair, and promptly fell asleep. Ron Klain saw it all go down and did nothing. pic.twitter.com/ApFajyCuye
— Jesse Watters (@JesseBWatters) April 10, 2025
“Fast-forward. Nevertheless, they go ahead with this debate,” Whipple continued. “I asked Klain, and I said, ‘Why—you know, why in the world would you—could you—would you do that?’ And [Klain] said, ‘Well, it was like, politically, just wasn’t feasible to cancel it at that point.'”
Whipple’s book paints a grim picture of Biden’s mental and physical state leading up to the June debate, according to previously published excerpts. Klain said he was “startled” at Biden’s condition and had to cut short the two mock debates he had organized because the then-president was “extremely exhausted” and “unaware of what was happening in his own campaign.” Klain was also “struck by how out of touch with American politics” Biden was, Whipple writes.
“The president was fatigued, befuddled, and disengaged,” Whipple adds. “Klain feared the debate with Trump would be a nationally televised disaster.”
Klain’s revelations are a strong contrast with what he told the media after the debate. At the time, the former chief of staff insisted that Biden was “absolutely sharp, fit, on top of his game,” and attributed Biden’s dismal performance to “a cold that really constrained his voice and constrained his ability to be forceful in the debate.”
Watters on Wednesday criticized that explanation. Biden “had a cold—that’s what the line was,” Watters said. “If a cold could knock you out of the most important night of your life, how really strong are you?”
“Yeah, exactly,” Whipple replied. “And also just the issue of age and mental infirmity at that point was just—it was the issue in the campaign.”
