Role in 2020 presidential campaign
Regarding the much-discussed possibility of her husband
running in the 2020 United States presidential election, Biden was a key
participant in his decision-making process. By one report in March 2019, she
was "enthusiastically" in
favor of his running.
The Joe Biden 2020 presidential campaign was officially announced
on April 25, 2019. A Town and Country magazine headline declared that "Jill Biden Might Just Be Joe Biden's
Greatest Political Asset".
Days later, Biden addressed the matter of women who had
accused her husband of physical contact that had made them feel uncomfortable
by saying, "I think what you don't
realize is how many people approach Joe. Men and women, looking for comfort or
empathy. But going forward, I think he's gonna have to judge – be a better
judge – of when people approach him, how he's going to react. That he maybe
shouldn't approach them." She said she had experienced male intrusion
on personal space herself: "I just
sorta stepped aside. I didn't address it. ... Things have changed. There was a
time when women were afraid to speak out. I can remember specifically it was in
a job interview ... if that same thing happened today, I'd turn around and say,
'What do you think you're doin'?' ... it's totally different." She
also attracted attention by saying "it's
time to move on" concerning her husband's role in 1991 regarding Anita
Hill and the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination.
Biden continued to teach at NOVA during 2019, at one point
telling a reporter, "I'm here
grading research papers in between interviews." She staged appearances
without her husband in early contest states such as Iowa, in some cases
accompanied by a granddaughter. She attracted notice during one campaign stop
in New Hampshire when she emphasized the electability argument in favor of her
husband, saying, "you know, your
candidate might be better on, I don't know, health care, than Joe is, but
you've got to look at who's going to win this election, and maybe you have to
swallow a little bit and say, 'OK, I personally like so-and-so better,' but
your bottom line has to be that we have to beat Trump."
Once Hunter Biden became a Republican political focus during
the Trump–Ukraine scandal, she was outspoken: "Hunter did nothing wrong. And that's the bottom line."
The strain of the subsequent impeachment trial was enough to fracture a
friendship she had with South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, who repeatedly
called for Hunter Biden to be questioned as a witness at the trial.
Biden played a more active role in this presidential
campaign than she had in her husband's two prior ones, and for the first time,
Biden reluctantly took a leave of absence from NOVA for the spring 2020
semester so she could be on the campaign trail full-time. She took training in
online teaching once the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States struck. She
indicated that she intended to resume teaching at NOVA even if her husband were
to be elected.
In the weeks leading up to the Iowa caucuses, she sometimes
staged more campaign appearances in that state than her husband did. She gave out
her campaign e-mail address to voters in case they wanted to ask her follow-up
questions. In joint appearances, she sometimes spoke after he did, acting in
the "closer" role. After
experiencing a number of victories around the nation, she gained some media
attention at the March 3 Super Tuesday primaries during her husband's speech
when she physically blocked a protester from getting at him. Asked about the
stiff-arm she employed, she said, "I'm
a good Philly girl."
With her husband having become the presumptive Democratic
nominee, in June 2020, she published the children's book Joey: The Story of Joe
Biden, which portrayed him as having been "brave
and adventurous" as a child despite having a stutter he was bullied for.
In July 2020, she spoke out about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on
education, appearing in a video with her husband to emphasize that she
understands the frustration with virtual education substitutes: "Schools and parents alike want a
clear, science-based strategy, not mixed messages and ultimatums." She
criticized U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos for what she saw as
political motivations in advocating a reopening of schools no matter what and
said that "the first thing [Joe
Biden]'s going to do is pick a secretary of education, who is a public school
educator and has experience in the classroom. I mean I hear that, again and
again and again – no more Betsy DeVos."
She was heavily involved in the vice-presidential selection
process that resulted in Senator Kamala Harris's being chosen. On the second
night of the virtual 2020 Democratic National Convention, Biden spoke from the
classroom at Brandywine High School, where she had once taught English. She
drew parallels between family suffering and the plight of the country, saying, "How do you make a broken family whole?
The same way you make a nation whole. With love and understanding and with
small acts of kindness, with bravery, with unwavering faith." During
the final stretch of the general election, she campaigned in the Delaware
Valley region of Pennsylvania, near her home town, emphasizing the importance
of the swing state and of women voting, saying, "You will decide, you, the women, will decide the future of this
state and this state may determine the entire election."
First Lady of the
United States (2021–present)
Role and continued
teaching
Biden's husband was elected president and took office on
January 20, 2021. She is the first spouse since Barbara Bush to hold the
positions of both Second Lady and First Lady and is the first one since Pat
Nixon to hold them non-consecutively. At the age of 69, Biden was the oldest
first lady to assume the role. She is also the first Italian American first
lady. In mid-November 2020, it was announced that her chief of staff as first
lady would be attorney and diplomat Julissa Reynoso Pantaleón and that her
senior advisor in the role would be campaign staffer Anthony Bernal. In
December 2020, an op-ed piece by writer Joseph Epstein in The Wall Street
Journal, which urged the incoming First Lady to drop the "Dr." from her preferred form of address because she is
not a medical doctor, was met with a widespread backlash, especially among
professional women. Outgoing First Lady Melania Trump did not invite incoming
First Lady Jill Biden to the White House for tea and a tour, which previously
had been a tradition in the presidential transition of power.
She resumed teaching at NOVA, albeit at first on a remote
basis over Zoom due to the pandemic. This has made her the first wife of a
sitting U.S. president to hold a paying job outside the White House. For
security reasons and for students who are looking to add a class taught by
Biden, her classes at NOVA have often been listed as instructed by "staff". She has stayed up
late in the White House quarters to review assignments she has given her
students. In September 2021 she returned to in-person teaching at NOVA. Her
presence there exemplified the Biden administration's desire to get students
and teachers back to physical schools; she subsequently said "thank God we all got off Zoom".
Security for her classes became tighter than it had been as second lady, with
students having to go through a metal detector and initially getting a security
briefing. She has maintained her reputation as a tough grader who gave a lot of
homework.
First ladies are expected to have one or more causes that
they advocate for, and Biden's have been military families, education, and
aspects of health care. The same day may see her teaching classes at the
college and then flying to an appearance as first lady. Of managing her
professional life, her family roles, and her first lady activities all
together, Biden has said, "You can't
do anything in a haphazard way. You have to have purpose while you're doing it,
and it has to be organized. That's the key to it."
Domestic initiatives
and activities
The Joining Forces program with Michelle Obama, which was
put on hiatus by Melania Trump, has been revived by Biden. During visits to
Joint Base Lewis–McChord and Naval Air Station Whidbey Island in the state of
Washington, Biden said that "the men
and women of our armed forces can't be at their best when they are worried that
their families are struggling," and praised the joint base for having
dedicated spaces for service children on the autistic spectrum. During 2021,
Biden visited 16 military installations and worked with Joining Forces to hold
over 20 events for military families focusing on employment, entrepreneurship
and other issues. In the same year, the Office of the First Lady joined the
U.S. National Security Council in launching the Joining Forces Interagency
Policy Committee to secure proposals across the federal government to support
military families.
During her husband's first year in office, Biden was put in
charge of the public push for legislation that, as part of the American
Families Plan, would provide free tuition to students attending community
colleges. This proposal, initially estimated at over $100 billion, became part
of the large proposed Build Back Better Act (BBB). The BBB social spending
initiatives went through a series of negotiations during the year and the bill
as a whole struggled to find sufficient support among Democrats in the Senate.
Biden continued to advocate for the free community college tuition item and
some Democrats in Congress pushed for it too once it became known that it might
be eliminated. In a February 2022 appearance before the Community College
National Legislative Summit, Biden publicly acknowledged that the free
community college tuition item had been dropped from any BBB bill and said that
she was "disappointed ... these
aren't just bills and budgets to me." (After many further
negotiations, a significantly reduced bill passed Congress and became law as
the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, with free tuition for community college
one of those provisions that did not make the cut.)
Jill Biden is an advocate for COVID-19 vaccination and
toured the United States as a part of President Biden's campaign to vaccinate Americans
against COVID-19. Indeed, at times she was the foremost spokesperson in the
administration for the vaccination effort; she was sent to parts of the country
known for anti-vaccine beliefs and antipathy towards her husband, under the
belief that she had a better chance of communicating with people in those
areas. Biden, who was fully vaccinated with two booster shots, contracted
COVID-19 herself in August 2022 and went into isolation protocols; she
subsequently encountered Rebound Covid (as well as contracting Covid again in
September 2023). In January 2023, Biden underwent Mohs surgery to remove two
basal-cell carcinoma lesions from her face and chest.[
Jill Biden is also more political than previous first ladies.
According to a President's advisor, she is "one
of the top raisers across the board for us as a party." In October
2021, she visited Virginia to deliver a “last-minute
stump” speech for the Democratic governor, Terry McAuliffe, in his race
against Republican challenger and his successor Glenn Youngkin. In 2022, she
organized seven fundraisers for the Democratic National Committee. She
described the 2022 overruling of the Roe
v. Wade Supreme Court ruling as "unjust
and so devastating." She criticized former president Donald Trump and
Russian president Vladimir Putin during public events and private Democratic
National Committee fundraisers. She also criticized Republican opposition of an
assault weapons ban and more spending on climate change. In July 2022, Biden
expressed frustration with the challenges her husband have faced as his
administration has sought to address a range of issues. She has played a role
in the hiring of people within the administration's press personnel and has
criticized them when she felt they were not sufficiently protecting her
husband's image.
By October 2022, Biden had visited 40 U.S. states as first
lady, outpacing the number of states that her husband visited during his
presidency.
Foreign trips and
activities
49th G7 summit
In June 2021, Joe and Jill Biden visited Cornwall in the
United Kingdom to attend the 47th G7 summit. Biden and the Duchess of Cambridge
visited primary school students and participated in a roundtable discussion
focusing on early childhood education. The pair penned an op-ed that was
published by CNN about early childhood care. In July 2021, Biden visited Tokyo,
Japan in her first solo trip abroad as the first lady. There, she met Japanese
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga with his wife Mariko Suga at Akasaka Palace and
met Emperor Naruhito at Tokyo Imperial Palace. She also visited American
athletes at the 2020 Summer Olympic Games and attended the Olympics opening
ceremony at the Olympic Stadium.[ In October 2021, Joe and Jill Biden visited
Vatican City. There, the couple met Pope Francis at the Apostolic Palace to
discuss world poverty and climate change. In the same month, the couple visited
Rome, Italy to attend G20 Leaders' Summit. Biden met Serena Cappello, wife of
Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi at Chigi Palace and Brigitte Macron, wife
of French President Emmanuel Macron at Il Marchese restaurant. She also visited
the families of American troops in Naples.
In May 2022, during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine,
Biden made a trip (without her husband) to Romania and Slovakia, visiting with
Ukrainian women and children refugees and asking questions of workers from aid
organizations. During this, she made an unannounced trip across the
Slovakia–Ukraine border to Uzhhorod, Ukraine, where she met with displaced
Ukrainian schoolchildren, as well as with Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska.
The visit coincided with Mother's Day as celebrated in the U.S., and Biden
said, "I wanted to come on Mother's
Day. We thought it was important to show the Ukrainian people that this war has
to stop, and this war has been brutal, and that the people of the United States
stand with the people of Ukraine." It was the first visit to a war
zone by a U.S. first lady without her husband since Laura Bush went to
Afghanistan in 2008, and it was the first appearance in public for Zelenska since
the invasion started. At a subsequent
NATO summit, Biden and several other first ladies emphasized a commitment to helping
Ukrainian refugees. In the same month, Biden visited Ecuador, Panama, and Costa
Rica. At each stop, she engaged in public appearances and diplomatic
discussions that emphasized the value that partnership with the United States
brought in by addressing a variety of issues within those countries.
While Biden had visited the continent of Africa five times
as second lady, her initial visit there as first lady came in February 2023
with a trip to Namibia and Kenya. In Windhoek, she delivered a speech on
democracy and women's empowerment. While in Kenya's Kajiado County, she
witnessed the effects of the ongoing 2020–2023 Horn of Africa Drought. In May
2023, Biden and her granddaughter, Finnegan, were the representatives of the
American government at the Coronation of Charles III and Camilla, making her
the first First Lady to ever attend a British coronation. In June 2023, Biden
and her daughter Ashley attended the wedding of Crown Prince Hussein of Jordan
and Rajwa Al Saif. In the same month, she visited Egypt, Morocco and Portugal,
focusing on youth empowerment and art. In July 2023, Biden visited Paris to
give a speech to mark the official return of the United States to UNESCO.
By May 2023, Biden had traveled more than her husband, the
vice president, or the second gentleman.
Approval ratings,
popularity and controversy
In October 2021, Biden was placed the seventh most popular
first lady out of twelve recent first ladies from an online survey poll by
Zogby Analytics.
During the first year and a half of being first lady, a CNN
poll revealed that Biden's favorability ratings had declined, from 58 percent
favorable to 28 percentages unfavorable at the time of her husband's
inauguration, compared to 34 percent favorable to 29 percent unfavorable during
June–July 2022. A popularity dip of that extext was unusual, as first ladies
usually have stronger ratings than their husbands do and stay high even when
their husbands' ratings decline. The decline has been attributed to Biden being
more outwardly political than previous first ladies; to the general increase of
partisan polarization in the United States dragging down everyone associated
with an unpopular president; and, because of a large number of respondents
shifting their views to "no
opinion", an artifact of how the CNN poll was conducted. The poll also
showed that Biden is still more popular among Republicans than both the
president and vice president.
Biden has been noted for having superior message discipline
compared to her husband and has rarely produced gaffes. However, one did occur
at the July 2022 conference of Latino advocacy organization UnidosUS, when
Biden claimed Latino Americans were as "unique"
as tacos. She also mispronounced the word "bodegas".
Her Latino stereotyping caused widespread condemnation, including from the
National Association of Hispanic Journalists, who issued a statement which said
"We are not tacos." Biden apologized
via a spokesman. The combination of a polling decline and the gaffe was noted
as unfortunate timing for the White House and the Democratic Party, who were
working to win back Hispanic voters who had drifted to the Republican Party,
prior the 2022 midterm elections. In any case, Biden's use in such roles was
not diminished, as she became the most requested surrogate of anyone in the
Biden administration (including her husband) during fall 2022 campaigns and
often was utilized in Republican-leaning areas. Her ability to reach suburban women
was especially desired. In all she participated in about 40 speaking
appearances or fundraisers for various candidates and as the year closed, she
was suffering from exhaustion and laryngitis.
Biden did commit what the New York Times termed an "unforced error" in April 2023
when, after attending the highly watched championship game of the 2023 NCAA
Division I women's basketball tournament, she extended both the losing Iowa
Hawkeyes as well as the winning LSU Tigers an invitation to the White House
traditionally only extended to winners. The remark was walked back by the first
lady's spokesperson, and only LSU was invited, after the game's aftermath
became tangled in some racially-oriented discussions regarding the differing
treatments given trash-talking behavior by the two teams' top players, LSU's
Angel Reese and Iowa's Caitlin Clark. Reese initially took offense at Biden's
remark, but the two hugged when the LSU visit to the White House took place in
May 2023.
Fashion and style
In September 2020, Biden wore Stuart Weitzman's black boots
with the word "vote"
written on them. The boots she wore was sold out immediately and page views for
the boots spiked five-fold the next day. At her husband's victory speech in
Wilmington, Biden wore an Oscar de la Renta dark-blue floral dress designed by Fernando
Garcia and Laura Kim. The dress she wore sold out quickly. In March 2021, her
spokesperson stated that the first lady's press team would not comment on her
clothes. During her public appearances, Biden has been noted to favor jeans and
cashmere sweaters created by American designers with focus on sustainability.
On February 13, 2021, Biden posted a photo on Twitter of her shopping for
cupcakes in Washington, D.C. while wearing a scrunchie, which went viral. Of
the attention the scrunchie photo got, Biden said on The Kelly Clarkson Show, "I still don't understand it."
Writings
Books
Jacobs-Biden, Jill (2006). Student Retention at the Community College: Meeting Students' Needs
(Newark, DE: University of Delaware, Fall 2006) [doctoral dissertation]
Biden, Jill (2012). Don't
Forget, God Bless Our Troops (New York: Simon & Schuster) [children's,
illustrations by Raúl Colón]
Biden, Jill (May 7, 2019). Where the Light Enters: Building a Family, Discovering Myself. New
York: Flatiron Books. ISBN 9781250182326.
Biden, Jill (June 30, 2020). Joey: The Story of Joe Biden. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN
9781534480537. [children's, illustrations by Amy June Bates]
Authored articles
First Lady Jill Biden; HRH The Duchess of Cambridge (June
12, 2021). "This is what our kids
deserve". CNN. Archived from the original on June 12, 2023.
First Lady Jill Biden (November 16, 2021). "Jill Biden: What to do if you want to
protect your kids". CNN. Archived from the original on June 12, 2023.
Biden, Jill; Dole, Elizabeth (April 22, 2022). "The service and sacrifice of our
military caregiver kids deserves to be supported and recognized". Fox
News. Archived from the original on June 11, 2023.
Biden, Jill (May 13, 2022). "Jill Biden: What Ukrainian mothers taught me about this
war". CNN. Archived from the original on June 12, 2023.
Biden, Jill (April 21, 2023). "The Resilience and Grit of Military Children is
Unparalleled". Parents. Archived from the original on June 11, 2023.
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