If anyone can convince President Joe Biden to make a graceful exit, it’s his wife of 47 years. But for anxious Democrats hoping Jill Biden will step in, don’t hold your breath.
Joe Biden has been a politician for five decades. Jill Biden has been by his side for almost that entire time. And ever since his mother Catherine “Jean” Finnegan Biden passed away in 2010, she has been the matriarch of the sprawling Biden family.
There has not been a more close-knit first family since the Kennedys. They include the first lady, Valerie Biden Owens, 78, the president’s younger sister and his longtime political adviser who ran several of his Senate and presidential campaigns, and his son Hunter. They are the triumvirate of decision-makers in the Biden family.
But it is Jill who is her husband’s greatest and most loyal defender. As someone who has studied first ladies, I was not at all surprised that she has been his most vocal supporter in the days since the President’s disastrous debate. Her main message? This too shall pass.
“Joe isn’t just the right person for the job. He’s the only person for the job,” she declared at a Long Island fundraiser on Saturday, two days after Biden’s disastrous debate performance that has put his reelection bid in peril. She was more forthcoming at an LGBTQ fundraising event at New York’s Stonewall National Monument, when she admitted the obvious because, as she told the crowd, “I know it’s on your minds.”
“As Joe said earlier today, he’s not a young man,” she said. “And you know, after last night’s debate, he said, ‘You know, Jill, I don’t know what happened. I didn’t feel that great.’ And I said, ‘Look, Joe, we are not going to let 90 minutes define the four years that you’ve been president.’”
CNN
