Key Highlights
Democrats React with Frustration
You might think this is new, but… Democrats have spent nearly two years trying to move past the 2024 presidential election. Now, Jill Biden’s memoir is forcing them to relive it.
The book, “View From the East Wing,” is already drawing sharp rebukes from top Democrats who say it’s a poorly timed and misleading account of events that led to her husband’s defeat.
Reopening Wounds
“Unhelpful. … Ripping open a healing scab is never helpful,” John Morgan, a Florida trial attorney who was a major fundraiser for Biden’s 2024 campaign, told The Times. He added that she loved the life and didn’t want it to end.
Midterms on Horizon
Those type of frustrations erupted last week as the former first lady began promoting her book, including in a sit-down interview with CBS News airing Sunday, in which she said she thought the sitting president was having a stroke as she watched the 2024 presidential debate. “I was frightened, because I had never ever seen Joe like that before or since. Never,” Biden said.
The moment “scared me to death,” she added. With the midterms around the corner, some bemoaned that Biden was relitigating a sore subject—particularly the question of who knew what about Biden’s aging and cognitive decline.
Political Trust and Momentum
“What I care about is what happens going forward,” Dan Pfeiffer, a host of “Pod Save America,” said on the show Thursday. “What bothers me the most is not the timeline of events, but whether Democratic leaders now will ever reckon with the massive breach of trust that came because of how all of that was handled.”
Backlash from Democrats
Meghan Hays, a former White House aide to Joe Biden, said on C-SPAN’s “Ceasefire” that although she understands that Jill Biden is trying to sell books, her efforts are not helping the party ahead of the midterm elections. “We have a lot of momentum in our favor… and when we get pulled back into conversations about age and the election in ’24, it’s never gonna be a good place for Democrats,” Hays said.
Republicans Take Notice
The former first lady writes that her goal is to set the record straight about what happened during the debate and the months that followed. In one part, she even suspected her husband may have been inadvertently impaired after taking cough syrup. But in the CBS interview, Biden maintained that she never saw any signs of cognitive decline while he was the sitting president.
Michael LaRosa, a former press secretary for the first lady, called Democrats’ reaction to the new memoir “pretty grim.” “There is a deep reservoir of frustration among ‘formers’ who believe she enables the culture around her and the President rather than challenging it,” he wrote. “So now they seem to be challenging her.”
Even if that’s the case, Republicans are taking notice.
In a Truth Social post on Friday, President Trump appeared gleeful to note that Biden was “finally admitting” that she did not know what was wrong with her husband during “our spectacular, and highly rated, 2024 Presidential Debate.” The president lamented that the former first lady did not compliment his performance.
This is not going to be part of a conversation in the election. It’s going to be part of a conversation in Washington because that is what Washington does, but this is not going to move the needle in New Hampshire or other states where it matters,” said Steve Schale, a Democratic strategist who ran a pro-Biden super PAC during the 2020 election cycle.
She is selling books. But Democrats are annoyed at the conversation Biden has resurfaced. This might just be a tough place to be for Jill Biden and her memoir in the world of politics right now.