FirstladyJill Biden is on Vogue’s next cover in a gushing profile posted Monday — as she vowed not to give up on the 2024 race despite hubby President Biden’s disastrous debate performance.
Speaking from CampDavid, wherethe Biden family were holed up for the weekend, Jill told the magazine “will not let those 90 minutes define the four years he’s been president.”
“We will continue to fight,” she continued in the feature published Monday, claiming that Biden “will always do what’s best for the country.”
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The first lady’s defiance comes as she faces a firestorm of criticism for not forcing her 81-year-old husband to give up his re-election campaign following last week’s face-off against former President Donald Trump.
Thenationally televised trainwreckresulted in widespread calls from Democrats for Biden to step aside and for resignations among his top aides.
Jill, on her part, was widely mocked for telling her husband in the aftermath that he “did such a great job” – despite him repeatedly losing his train of thought and speaking in a weak voice.
Some Republicans have even gone as far as accusing Jill of “elder abuse.”
During thefawning Vogue interview— in which writer Maya Singer called Jill Biden “a great hang” — the first ladytold the glitzy mag that she pushes the president to take action “in so many different areas.”
“I tell him what I’m seeing, what I’m hearing — and he gets it,” she said proudly.
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“And this is where the magic happens.”
White House insiders have confirmed the first lady’s key role, with one telling The Postearlier this yearthat “nobody wants to piss off Dr. Biden, because at the end of the day, Dr. Biden is the first person and last to talk to the president.”
Katie Rogers, aNew York TimesWhite House correspondent who recently wrote a book about first ladies,was quoted as calling Jill the president’s “gut check and hisclosest confidant.”
The first lady’s former press secretary, Michael LaRosa, who has criticizedcurrent White House stafffor their supposed missteps in promoting the Bidens, said on X Monday that Jill was being “unfairly vilified and blamed” following the debate.
However, LaRosa added, the Vogue cover was “poor timing, no question about it.”
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“I see why the FLOTUS team thought it was strategic and wise, but as a result of last Thursday, this will only fuel and confirm suspicions on the right/and dark corners of the internet that she is the one pushing him to run again because she doesn’t want to give up the perks and trappings of power, like being on the cover of Vogue,” he added.
In a separate post, LaRosa insisted that those calling for Jill Biden to nudge her husband off the campaign trail should “have their head examined.”
“[By the way], it’s also kinda unfair to put this on her shoulders — she’s not a political adviser, a lawmaker, or a party official — she’s his wife,” he said. “That is not how she rolls.”
Other commentators criticized the tone of the cover, which included a taglinequoting the first lady as saying “we will decide our future.”
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The Economist’s Brussels bureau chief Stanley Pignaltweeted that the cover“looks a bad misfire.”
“‘We will decide our future’ has a vaguely autocratic air,” he wrote. “Like Madame Ceaușescu or Asma ‘Rose of the Desert’ al-Assad telling the plebs to mind their own business.”
Former Wall Street Journal reporter and Guardian economics editor Heidi Moore suggested that the first lady had worn white on the Vogue cover “the same way that Hillary wore white to her Trump debates and Trump’s inauguration: To make the case that she should be president.
“I promise you there is a nonzero number of Democratic advisers who rushed up that Vogue shoot and are looking at social media in the hopes that Jill Biden would be popular enough to run as president and Team Biden can keep their jobs that way. It would explain the high-handed tone of ‘we decide our future,'”Moore added on X. “They really hate [VP] Kamala [Harris] that much!”
The profile – the second Vogue cover Jill has graced since being in the White House — the first lady defended Biden’s record, rattling off what she hailed as some of his accomplishments.
“If people knew what Joe’s done — with the recovery act, and infrastructure, and CHIPS,” she said.
“If they knew all of that — I mean, the bridge is being built in their city and they don’t know who did it. They don’t know who’s getting the lead out of their water. They don’t know who’s stopping the pipeline going through the parklands. They don’t know.”
“That’s why I’m trying to be out there,” she continued. “Why we’re all trying. To say, ‘This is what we’ve achieved, and this is how it affects your life.’ ”
