Former first girl Jill Biden says she felt she “had to support” President Joe Biden publicly within the wake of his disastrous 2024 debate with Donald Trump, despite acknowledging now that she feared her husband might have been having a stroke.
Her newest feedback got here in an interview Monday with NBC through which she was pressed on her public insistence that Joe Biden was able to serving 4 extra years within the Oval Office. It comes as the previous first girl launches a tour to assist her new memoir, “View from the East Wing,” which is being launched Tuesday.
She stated Monday that through the debate, she was “watching, just like everybody else was, scared to death, like, ‘What is going on?’”
“He gets off the stage. I see he appears to be OK. He says to me, ‘Jill, I really, in other words, messed up, didn’t I?’ And I said, ‘Yes, you did,’” she advised NBC. (According to The Atlantic, Jill Biden writes her husband stated, “I really f**ked up, didn’t I?”)
In a post-debate occasion that night time, Jill Biden stated, “Joe, you did such a great job. You answered every question. You knew all the facts.”
Hear what Joe and Jill Biden stated about his debate efficiency
“What do I say to him? I’m his wife. I’ve got to lift him up,” she advised NBC, describing her thought course of. “So, we go to the next event, and I’m thinking, what do I say that will lift him up that is true? I want to say things that are true.”
“And so, I said, ‘You answered every question,’” she stated, recalling her feedback onstage. “My mind’s racing.”
“I had to sort of lift him up. I’m his wife. I’m not going to get out on the stage there and say, ‘Joe, you really screwed that up.’ And we have all of our supporters there,” she stated, including, “That’s who we are. I had to support him.”
In late July — lower than 4 weeks after the debate, and with the Democratic Party in a panic — Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race and threw his assist behind his vice chairman, Kamala Harris.
Jill Biden was requested about Harris’ assertion in her own memoir final yr that it was “recklessness” to go away the choice about whether or not Joe Biden ought to search reelection to the president and first girl alone.
“That is her point of view, and if she felt that way, she should have said it,” Jill Biden stated.
She additionally acknowledged within the Monday interview that Joe Biden was getting old in workplace.
“He got older, and we all saw him aging. There were words that he would forget. But, you know, we were all aging,” she stated.
However, she stated, the 2 had been additionally assured by docs that he was wholesome, and she “saw him doing his job” and “work hours into the night” on daily basis.
“Yes, did I see him slowing down a little bit? When he got tired, did he stutter a little bit at night? Yeah, sure. But he was still doing the job, and he was doing a good job,” she stated.
In the interview, Jill Biden additionally addressed her husband’s 2025 prostate most cancers prognosis and his present well being.
Joe Biden’s private workplace revealed that May that he had been recognized with an “aggressive form” of prostate cancer that had unfold to his bones. He began radiation remedy final fall as a part of his remedy.
She stated he’s “doing OK.”
“If he had just been diagnosed with prostate cancer, that’s one thing, because that can be cured,” she stated. “But the fact that it metastasized to his bones — that makes it a whole different story. So I think Joe will live with cancer for the rest of his life.”