Former President Bill Clinton sparked concern on social media Wednesday after he was spotted walking gingerly and stumbling ahead of a book event in New York City.
Clinton, 78, needed to grab hold of a pole in order to pull himself up from the street to the sidewalk outside the 92NY cultural center in Manhattan, where the event was taking place, video posted on X showed.
The 42nd president’s left leg immediately buckled as he planted his foot on the pavement, causing him to stumble.
Yet no one around the ex-commander in chief, including Secret Service agents and autograph hunters, appeared all that concerned.
Clinton then slowly made his way to autograph seekers, where his wife, Hillary, was already signing a few items.
The former president’s gait and physical appearance shocked many on social media.
“Bill can hardly walk,” conservative columnist Buzz Patterson wrote on X, sharing the clip of the trip.
“Bill Clinton ain’t looking well,” Texas Patriot tweeted.
Some X users compared Clinton’s physical decline to that of former President Joe Biden.
“Bill Clinton is starting to stumble around like Joe Biden,” one account tweeted.
Another person described the ex-commander in chief as looking “very Bidenlike – unsteady, sleepy.”
One social media user noted that Clinton looked to be in an “obvious fragile state,” and that Hillary left him “in her dust” as she exited the black van carrying them to the event.
Clinton has faced several health problems since leaving the Oval Office in January 2001 after serving two terms in the White House.
A fever landed him in a Washington, DC, hospital last December, where he spent one night being treated for the flu and was released on Christmas Eve.
In 2021, Clinton was hospitalized for about a week in California after a urinary tract infection spread to his bloodstream.
In 2004, he underwent a successful quadruple heart bypass surgery that was described as a “relatively routine” four-hour procedure at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University.
And six years later, he was taken to the same Manhattan hospital where surgeons inserted two stents into a clogged artery, according to his doctors at the time.
The former president was attending an event Wednesday night related to his new political thriller, “The First Gentleman,” which he co-authored with James Patterson.
The book is described by 92NY as “a propulsive, white-knuckle ride through the West Wing, the media, and the American psyche.”
It takes place in a world where the US has elected its first female president and her husband is put on trial for murder.
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