Andrew Bates Questions Trump on Waffle House Stop After Debate

President Donald Trump questioned why Jill Biden and Joe Biden went to a Waffle House in Georgia after the 2024 debate, after Jill Biden said she feared he was having a stroke. Andrew Bates was not mentioned in the underlying facts, so this article follows the confirmed exchange between Trump and the Bidens.

Trump raised the issue in a Wednesday interview, saying, "Yeah. I mean, so she said he had a stroke, but why would she bring him to a Waffle House if he had a stroke?" He also said, "I wouldn't say it was Winston Churchill, but he was fine. He was all right."

Trump on Melania Trump

When asked whether Melania Trump would have allowed a Waffle House stop if he had suffered a stroke, Trump said, "even in good times, she wouldn't" and added, "Although I would actually, it's not so bad," after saying his wife would not have permitted it. Miranda Devine noted that Jill and Joe Biden went to a Waffle House in Georgia after the debate ended.

Jill Biden's memoir

Jill Biden wrote in her memoir, View from the East Wing: A Memoir, that she still did not know what happened during the debate. She wrote, "Why wasn’t he making any sense? It was inexplicable to me," and added, "The only other time he’d sounded like that was right after he’d had surgery."

She also wrote, "Joe had something nonsensical about beating Medicare. Is he short-circuiting? I thought. Is this a stroke?" and, "It felt like we’re watching an AI hologram of the man we knew, and the hologram was glitching." In the memoir, she wrote, "Has he been drugged? Oh God — will people watching assume that this is how he is all the time?"

Tuesday interviews

Jill Biden said on MS NOW's "Morning Joe" on Tuesday that doctors checked Joe Biden after the debate and before three more events that night. She said, "And then we got off the stage and, you know, I went to get my stuff. He was checked out by the doctors. They said he’s fine. We went on to do three more events that night, and Joe was like he always was,"

She also told CBS last week that she feared Joe Biden was having a stroke during the debate. On "The View" on Tuesday, she said he would not have been in a good place to serve a second term had he remained in the race and won, citing his cancer diagnosis. She said, "Well, not from what I know now," and added, "My God. Who knew? It was so shocking to get that cancer diagnosis."

Trump's criticism gives new public shape to a dispute now being driven by Jill Biden's book and interviews. Her account of the debate, the doctor's check afterward and the Waffle House stop now sit next to Trump's question about why the couple went there at all.