A Presidential Interview with Jill Biden, 71, about the Bounds on Joe Biden’s Role in the White House
In a recent interview, former First Lady Obama said she thought President Joe Biden was doing a great job, but stopped short of making a full endorsement for a second run at the White House.
Obama that added much of her hesitancy comes from her own experience as first lady, and knowing how important the decision to run for a second term is.
“It’s a personal decision that he and his family have to make. She said that she would be more cavalier about opining if she had not been through it. “But I know it’s a personal call and I don’t want to be one of the millions of people weighing in on what he should do, he and Jill should do.”
KEITH: He does not feel any hurry one way or another regardless of what Trump does. If not for his own standards, Trump’s announcement is very early. And one factor that the White House must be weighing here – and Biden’s advisers – is that there are a lot of polls that show Democrats are not that excited about him running again. When I was out interviewing voters last month, many of them brought up concerns about Biden’s age, unprompted. They said that they like him, that he doesn’t get the credit he deserves. And then I’d say, oh, well, then do you want him to run again? There were a lot of pauses and ums.
He was the first 80 year old president of the United States last month when he celebrated his birthday. Jill Biden, 71, doesn’t want that to be the marker that leads every article and analysis about her husband after he has departed the Oval Office, friends and associates said.
The President’s Thanksgiving with the family: How did President Biden decide to run in 2020? How did he communicate with family in Nantucket?
It is probably the only job that a few people know how to do, but most people think they know how. Everybody’s a backseat driver when it comes to being Commander in Chief of the most powerful nation on earth,” said Obama. “But it’s a tough job and I think that he’s doing the best he can under some tough circumstances.”
President Biden is spending Thanksgiving with family in Nantucket. He has said he will talk with his family over the holidays about whether to act on his intention to run again in 2024.
A female adviser to Biden and also a top White House official has been asked about it by a publication.
ANITA DUNN: His decision to run in 2020 came after a family meeting that was actually, as he posed it, called by his grandchildren. Pop’s got to have this conversation. The family is going to be deeply involved in whatever decision he reaches because that’s who he is.
DUNN: We should be in the political malpractice hall of fame if we didn’t plan in November of this year.
MARTÍNEZ: When Donald Trump announced that he was going to run in 2024, I think everyone did a collective look toward D.C. to see exactly what President Biden was planning on doing.
NPR Transcripts: An Update on the First Lady Michelle Biden at the White House during the December/January 2008 Black Hole Collider
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. It is possible for accuracy and availability to be different. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
One person familiar with the first lady’s thinking said that she was not a proponent as of early fall. But in the month since the November midterm elections, in which Democrats defied the fate of most parties of first-term presidents, friends noted a change.
Even though the last several weeks of high-profile events have left her “exhausted,” said another person, “she has begun to say the quiet part out loud.”
“This time of year is busy, to say the least,” she said. It is likely that you are holiday shopping, cards to address or cookies to bake. … It’s not easy, is it? Sometimes all these feel like a full-time job, on top of volunteering or organizing or your real full-time job.”
“She’ll be at the White House for Christmas. They will be joined by members of their families,” said Vanessa Valdivia, Jill Biden’s press secretary, who declined further comment on family discussions.
The first lady, and she alone, has the full weight of kibosh; she can still stop what seems inevitable in a political calculus if she has concerns about her husband’s age or how another run would affect his legacy or their family. She has voted no on his higher office ambitions before, most notably in 2004.
Biden is coming off a physically and emotionally taxing period, said those who know her. Sources close to her said that she still leans into the presumption a second term is in the cards, but that last two weeks have run her ragged with the constant demands of her job.
Hundreds of invited guests have been arriving at the White House over the last several days for dozens of holiday parties after the recent weddings of her granddaughter and the administration’s first State Dinner. On Wednesday, Biden and the president hosted a large-scale social event in the East Room of the White House for African nation leaders and their families in Washington for a summit. Jill Biden was also charged with planning and hosting events for the spouses on Wednesday and Thursday, when a luncheon at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture will occupy a chunk of her day.
“She still has laryngitis, and is hoarse,” said a source familiar with the first lady’s rigorous schedule, alluding to Biden’s noticeably altered voice at speaking engagements this week. “She had three back-to-back parties on Saturday alone.”
That voice is the most influential to her husband’s decision making and thus will have to be the loudest when the time does come for him to announce his plans for 2024.
Though more squarely in the “we’re doing it” corner than she was even three months ago, Jill Biden still considers whether her husband, now 80, is up for a bruising battle, according to those familiar with her thinking.
“[Jill Biden] is the one more aware of how the last few years have affected Joe [Biden,]” noted a person with ties to the Biden family. “We – collectively, as a country – all know the age issue, sure. But she is the one who is most able to analyze it.
But a deeper analysis of what that would mean for Joe Biden’s legacy has only come more recently for the first lady, said others who have had more insight into conversations.
But she’s still uncertain how to shift that narrative in practice. One of the people who know her says that she is not convinced whether four more years will help or hurt.
Joe Biden, the first lady of the United States, told the Wall Street Journal: It’s all in, but it’s about time, not what’s next”
“The president will make that decision. Ron Klain, Biden’s Chief of Staff told a Wall Street Journal summit earlier this month that he expected it shortly after the holiday. “I expect his decision will be to do it.”
In an interview with ABC News, the president said he had to call his wife to find out whether he was running. He stressed that his intention “has been from the beginning to run. But there’s too many other things we have to finish in the near term before I start a campaign.”
“This is, ultimately, a family decision,” Joe Biden said at a news conference last month. “I think everybody wants me to run, but we’re going to have discussions about it.”
With the clock on the 2024 announcement ticking, Jill Biden has one more shot at away-from-Washington alone-time with her husband, when she could wrap her head around what “all in” actually entails.
The couple heads to the warmer climes of St. Croix between Christmas and New Year’s; laying in the sun with a book is a favored activity for the first lady.
Jill Biden and the President: What do 30-year-olds really want to do next year, and how will they go to Ukraine?
“Well, I – my guess is – I hope Jill and I get a little time to actually sneak away for a week,” the president said at his November post-election news conference at the White House, where Jill Biden sat in the front row. We’re going to make that decision early next year.
Jill Biden told CNN that the president’s surprise trip to Ukraine last week and domestic issues have kept him busy in recent days, adding that “nothing’s been planned as yet.”
How many 30-year-olds could travel to Poland and take the train? Go nine more hours, go to Ukraine, meet with President (Volodymyr) Zelensky?” She said that she did. “So, look at the man. Look what he’s doing. Look what he continues to do each and every day.”
She wouldn’t say whether a decision has been made or when it would be announced, but she was not angry with all the speculation.