Donald Trump seized a rare moment to explain a now-viral clip that could have ended with his face planted in the ground. The internet is having a field day after a split-second video of him taking extra precautions before going down a flight of stairs. The president has taken a deep breath, rubbed the back of his head, and even waved to nudge himself before descending from the airplane steps. But 79-year-old Trump couldn’t stop himself from tripping over his own feet on a five-step. Trump explained his careful approach to stairs by pointing to Biden’s falls and revisiting his long-standing obsession with how Obama walked. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images) ‘He Can’t Walk’: Trump Braces Himself at the Top of the Stairs, Wobbles on the Red Carpet, and Nearly Walks Into the Snow — Fueling New Concerns As Fans Zoom In After viewers watched him move cautiously on plane stairs, he made it clear in an interview that he deliberately avoids the fast, confident “bops” that another president is known for. During his appearance on the Feb. 2 episode of Dan Bongino’s relaunched podcast, “I’m Back,” Trump and his recently resigned deputy director of the FBI touched on his typical gripes of election fraud and voter turnout. It also covered one of his obsessions: falling while walking. As Trump spoke, he repeatedly returned to walking — how he does it, why he does it slowly, and how watching other presidents move has shaped his own behavior. The timing mattered. Days earlier, a video circulated of Trump returning from a trip to Mar-a-Lago. The executive was seen descending the stairs of Air Force One while gripping the handrail. Midway down, he slipped a little bit, prompting him to switch rails as a male official followed closely behind him. Air Force One just touched down at Andrews — President Trump is back in DC and the pace isn’t slowing. Another week of winning starts now.pic.twitter.com/ZWms3gULcw— Derrick Evans (@DerrickEvans4WV) February 1, 2026 He continued downward at a measured pace, saluted at the bottom, and walked toward Marine One with aides positioned nearby. Those precautions have been intentional. Since his second administration, the 79-year-old has emphasized how deliberately he walks. His team has added precautions, especially on aircraft stairs, including visible warning urging him to move slowly and watch his footing when boarding and exiting planes. On the podcast, Trump directly tied that caution to what he says he has watched happen to others — particularly Joe Biden. Explaining his mindset, he noted, “Here’s the main thing: we were laughed at a year and a half ago. We were laughed at as being stupid people … now we see a guy falling up the stairs going into an airplane.” Trump was referencing a widely replayed 2021 moment at Joint Base Andrews, when President Joe Biden stumbled while boarding Air Force One en route to Atlanta to meet Asian American community leaders after the deadly spa shootings. The repeated missteps quickly became a point of mockery among the Queens native community about his political enemy. “I’ve got to be very careful going in,” he explained before talking about the Biden stumble. “It can’t happen three times in one shot… I don’t think you’ll ever see anything like that,” Trump said. “But you haven’t watched me. I come down nice and slow. I’m not looking to set any records.” From Biden, Trump shifted to a fixation that predates his presidency: Barack Obama and the way he descended stairs while in office. He tweeted in 2014, “The way President Obama runs down the stairs of Air Force 1, hopping [and] bobbing all the way, is so inelegant and unpresidential. Do not fall!” On Bongino’s show, Trump revisited that image in vivid detail. “That was the one thing I have to say—it’s probably the only thing I respected,” he said. “And yet, it didn’t look elegant at all. He bopped down the stairs, right?” He reenacted it verbally. “He’s bopping down—you know, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop,” Trump said. “And I kept waiting for him to fall, and he didn’t.” Despite the criticism, Trump acknowledged being “impressed.” Donald 'Krasnov' Trump, here's your best friend, Barack Obama, making his way down the Air Force One stairs. … -DW pic.twitter.com/1xhcYsmybb https://t.co/IQhMqOvLE7— DeSota Wilson (@desota) December 22, 2025 “I didn’t even like the look of it, but I was impressed with his ability to go down the stairs like that,” he said, adding that the stairs are “very slippery” and that he had long thought Obama was “an accident waiting to happen.” He conceded, however, that “to the best of my knowledge, it didn’t happen.” Trump then returned to someone he could make fun of, with a quick jab, “But it happened… many falls with Biden.” The extended focus on stairs comes amid broader scrutiny of Trump’s physical presence. The White House has previously addressed visible bruising on his hands and swelling in his ankles, attributing them to chronic venous insufficiency. Still his recent comment did nothing to stop the jokes as one wroter, “Nurse??? He’s blabbering again.” Another suggested he get another form of transportation, “Ever think of a portable escalator?” Many even pointed out, “And they shortened the steps by 3 inches for the old man.” “Certainly king cankles is blaming Joe Biden for his incompetence to even go down stairs,” wrote one Yahoo reader. “Not to worry though because thankfully, Joe is catholic and can go to confession. Watch your step brother, it’s a long way to the tarmac.” Trump has not publicly fallen while in office, but his gait has been wobbly and erratic, and in June 2025, he did stumble up the stairs, similar to the Delaware politician. There have been other times when the public has caught the former reality star explaining himself. When people claimed he sounded funny during a 2024 interview with Elon Musk, he blamed it on technology — carefully dismissing it as a quirk in his devices and not something wrong with him. There is a habit here that continued on Bongino’s show. Trump is obsessed with sharing why something is off with him, hoping to turn a negative into a positive. Walking slowly, he suggested, is not hesitation — it is intention. And for a president who has spent years watching how others navigate a staircase, every step remains something to manage carefully, without bopping. ‘Nurse?’: Trump Claims His Awkward Slow Walk Is on Purpose, Then Keeps Repeating Himself Until He Accidentally Exposes His Real Fear, and It’s Not Falling ...read more read less