First lady Jill Biden speaks as President Biden stands behind her during a campaign event in North Carolina on Friday, June 28, 2024. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
NEW YORK — “So, let’s talk about last night’s debate, because I know it’s on your minds,” Jill Biden said.
The living room of the Greenwich Village brownstone fell silent. The first lady, poised in a polka dot dress and a pair of pink stilettos, stood behind a lectern, her lips spread into a half-smile. The nearly 60 attendees at that afternoon’s fundraiser, gripping the melted remnants of their Aperol Spritzes, stared back at her.
“As Joe said earlier today, he’s not a young man,” she continued, her voice upbeat. “After last night’s debate, he said, ‘You know, Jill, I don’t know what happened. I didn’t feel that great.’”
It was the most intimate detail anyone in Biden’s orbit had revealed about how the president viewed his debate performance on Thursday night, a dismal 90 minutes in which he stammered, stumbled and appeared to lose his train of thought.
To his wife of 47 years, it was no reason to panic. “I said, ‘Look, Joe, we are not going to let 90 minutes define the four years that you’ve been president,’” she said. The room erupted in applause.
“What my husband does know how to do is tell the truth,” she continued. “When he gets knocked down, Joe gets back up, and that’s what we’re doing today.”
If anyone had wondered whether the first lady thought her husband was still the best man for the job, this was a clear answer.
Outside of Biden Land, doubts remain, and some have called for drastic action. MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, the host of one of Biden’s favorite morning shows and often his staunchest defender, called for Biden to drop out of the race. So did New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, a personal friend of the president.
Some of Biden’s high-profile Democratic allies, meanwhile, have doubled down on their support for the incumbent. “Let’s just stay the course,” Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) told reporters Friday. “Bad debate nights happen,” wrote former president Barack Obama on X, appearing to brush off Biden’s performance as a surmountable setback.
The first lady’s review on the night of the debate had been implausibly rosy. “Joe, you did such a great job!” she said from the stage of a watch party late Thursday night. “You answered every question! You knew all the facts!” But by the time the Bidens took the stage at a rally in North Carolina on Friday afternoon, they were publicly admitting that things hadn’t gone well. “I don’t walk as easy as I used to,” President Biden explained to a supportive crowd in Raleigh. “I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to.” But, he added, “I know how to do this job.”
Jill joined her husband onstage at the North Carolina event in a clingy black dress with “Vote” printed all over in a bold, white font. The dress was intended as a statement of support unto itself, according to a source close to the first lady, who is not authorized to speak publicly about the campaign.
Then it was on to the New York fundraiser, the first time Jill Biden had faced an audience solo since the debate. The attendees, who had paid a minimum of $1,000 each to hear Jill Biden speak in that Greenwich Village living room, did not appear to be alarmed about the president, either. “We are in love with your husband,” novelist Adriana Trigiani, the fundraiser’s host, had said during her introduction of the first lady.
“We believe in you, we’re not going anywhere,” Trigiani added. “Everybody has a night here and there. Get off his back.”
