President Joe Biden stumbled several times while walking quickly up the stairs of Air Force One as the plane idled at Joint Base Andrews on Friday.
Video shows Biden, 78, stumbled twice halfway up the stairs before tripping and dropping to one knee.
The president stood, and appeared to dust off his knee before reaching the top of the stairs. He then gave a quick salute, and entered the plane.
Biden, following his fall, was "doing fine. He is doing just great," deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters about Biden's stumbles, reports Reuters. She said he was "100 percent."
She attributed the missteps to high winds. "It's pretty windy outside," she said, suggesting even she had been knocked off balance by the gusts, the New York Post adds.
As the Post reports, According to the National Weather Service, Joint Base Andrews in Maryland is experiencing winds of more than 20 miles per hour with gusts up to 25 mph.
Biden, the oldest president to take office, has in many instances made it a point to move quickly during appearances and on the campaign trail, and often has been seen jogging toward a stage or podium.
The president recently recovered from a hairline right-foot fracture suffered while playing with his rescue German shepherd, Major. The November injury required him to wear an orthopedic boot for several weeks.
Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were traveling to Atlanta to meet with members of the Asian community. The trip was in response to the mass shootings earlier this week at local area spas and massage parlors that killed eight people, including six Asian women.
Biden's stumbles came as many people question his fitness for office. A Rasmussen poll earlier this week showed that half of Americans are "not confident" Biden is physically and mentally up to the job of being president, and a third said they are concerned that he has not had a press conference yet.
However, Biden is not the first U.S. leader to have mishaps on the official planes' stairs, notes Fox News. Just last year, then-Vice President Mike Pence stumbled while boarding Air Force Two, and in 2015, former President Barack Obama almost fell down the stairs as he left Air Force One.
In 1975, former President Gerald Ford almost fell headfirst down the Air Force One stairs.
Then-President Donald Trump, within days of Pence's near fall on Air Force Two, had difficulty walking down a ramp at West Point Military Academy after his speech for graduates.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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