‘He had so many hopes’: Jill Biden voices frustration at Joe’s lack of progress in the White House as she says he’s been sidetracked by Ukraine war, Roe v Wade and gun violence
- Jill Biden spoke at a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee Saturday
- She said her husband ‘had so many hopes and plans for things he wanted to do’
- But added that the POTUS wasn’t able to prioritize them
- A NYT poll finds that 64 percent of Democratic voters would prefer a candidate other than Biden in 2024
First Lady Jill Biden has said her husband ‘had so many hopes’ when he got into office, but there were ‘problems of the moment’ that needed to be addressed first – both home and abroad.
Biden, 71, spoke at fundraising event for the Democratic National Committee in Nantucket, Massachusetts, on Saturday.
‘[The President] had so many hopes and plans for things he wanted to do, but every time you turned around, he had to address the problems of the moment,’ she told donors at the event.
‘He’s just had so many things thrown his way,’ she added.
During his presidency, Joe Biden has faced Russia’s war in Ukraine, the pullout of troops from Afghanistan, rising inflation and the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
The first lady’s remarks come after a New York Times poll recently found that 64 percent of Democratic voters would prefer a candidate other than Biden in 2024.
First lady Jill Biden speaks during the American Federation of Teachers convention, on Friday. The next day, she spoke on the challenges her husband had faced during his presidency
The first lady’s remarks come after a New York Tims poll recently found that 64 percent of Democratic voters would prefer a candidate other than Biden in 2024
‘Who would have ever thought about what happened [with the Supreme Court overturning] Roe v. Wade? Well, maybe we saw it coming, but still we didn’t believe it,’ she said. ‘The gun violence in this country is absolutely appalling. We didn’t see the war in Ukraine coming.’
Biden’s approval rating was a 33 percent and only 13 percent of Americans thought the country was headed in the right direction, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll released Monday.
‘I know there are so many nay-sayers who say we’ll get slammed in the midterms. Okay. The Republicans are working hard, they stick together, for good or evil. So, we just have to work harder,’ Jill Biden said.
Biden, 71, spoke at fundraising event for the Democratic National Committee in Nantucket, Massachusetts, on Saturday
Setbacks at home and abroad also affected Jill Biden’s own agenda.
‘I was saying to myself, ‘Okay, I was Second Lady. I worked on community colleges. I worked on military families. I’ve worked on cancer.’ They were supposed to be my areas of focus. But then when we got [in the White House,] I had to be, with all that was happening, the First Lady of the moment.’
Jill Biden was on a three-day trip in Massachusetts when she made the remarks.
Last week, the First Lady’s speech at another community event received some criticism online when she compared the city’s Latino community to ‘breakfast tacos.’
Biden’s office issued an apology on Tuesday for comparing the Hispanic community’s diversity to the breakfast tacos of San Antonio, Texas.
During the same speech, Biden made reference to a recent visit that she made to Uvalde in the wake of the May 2022 massacre at Robb Elementary School
‘The First Lady apologizes that her words conveyed anything but pure admiration and love for the Latino community,’ her press secretary Michael LaRosa wrote on Twitter.
Biden was speaking at the annual conference of UnidosUS, formerly known as the National Council of La Raza, when she made the awkward comparison in an attempt to praise the community and the work of civil rights leader Raul Yzaguirre.
‘As distinct as the bodegas of the Bronx, as beautiful as the blossoms of Miami, and as unique as the breakfast tacos here in San Antonio – is your strength,’ she said, mispronouncing the word ‘bodega.’
‘We are not tacos. Our heritage as Latinos is shaped by a variety of diasporas, cultures and food traditions, and should not be reduced to a stereotype,’ the National Association of Hispanic Journalists said in response.
In April 2021, Biden made a similar gaffe when she mispronounced the phrase: ‘Si se puede’ (Yes we can) to a group of farmworkers in Delano, California.
The gaffe came as President Biden’s popularity among Latino voters continues to plummet.
According to a recent Quinnipiac opinion poll found that Biden’s approval rating among young Hispanic voters is around 26%.
San Antonio is home to one of the largest Latino communities in the United States, with a population of nearly 1.5 million people that is 65 percent Hispanic or Latino, according to U.S. Census data.
Early on Sunday, President Biden arrived back at the White House from his four-day Middle East tour
Joe Biden had accused a Saudi official of lying about the topics discussed in his private meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, while again downplaying his infamous fist bump with the prince.
The image of the friendly fist bump drew harsh backlash from the publisher of the Washington Post and the widow of Khashoggi, who was killed in a gruesome assassination that US intelligence services say bin Salman ordered.
President Joe Biden has accused a Saudi minister of lying about the topics discussed in his private meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
A handout photo of President Joe Biden (left) fist-bumping Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (right) as he arrived for a meeting with the controversial royal Friday evening in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Hours earlier, just after Air Force One had taken off from Jeddah, Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel al-Jubeir called a Fox News reporter and claimed that he ‘did not hear’ Biden confront bin Salman, known as MBS, over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Al-Jubeir’s claim seems to directly contradict Biden’s account of the meeting with MBS on Friday, after which the president said that he had raised Khashoggi’s murder ‘at the top of the meeting’ and accused the crown prince of directing the plot.
On the South Lawn, when asked if al-Jubeir was telling the truth about the meeting, Biden bluntly replied ‘No’.
Notably, Saudi officials have offered conflicting accounts of the conversation between Biden and MBS, and whether Khashoggi’s murder was discussed.
Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel al-Jubeir (above) claimed that he ‘did not hear’ Biden confront MBS over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi
On Friday, Saudi Foreign Minster Faisal bin Farhan seemed to tell reporters that Biden did raise Khashoggi’s murder at the meeting.
Bin Farhan said that MBS responded by slamming the US over its own abuses of human rights, including the notorious mistreatment of prisoners by military personnel at Abu Ghraib in Iraq.
An American intelligence report said MBS directed the assassination of Khashoggi, a Saudi-born critic of the kingdom, who was living in the United States.
President Joe Biden arrives at Andrews Air Force Base, at the conclusion of a trip to Israel and Saudi Arabia late on Saturday
Biden takes reporters’ questions on the south lawn of the White House. Biden just returned from visiting Jeddah, Saudi Arabia where he met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
After Biden fist-bumped MBS as he arrived for a series of Friday night meetings at the Al Salman Royal Palace in Jeddah, Fred Ryan, the publisher and CEO of The Washington Post – which employed Khashoggi – called Biden’s fist bump with the crown prince ‘shameful.’
‘The fist bump between President Biden and Mohammed bin Salman was worse than a handshake – it was shameful,’ Ryan said in a statement. ‘It projected a level of intimacy and comfort that delivers to MBS the unwarranted redemption he has been desperately seeking.’
Hatice Cengiz, Khashoggi’s fiancée, shared what she believed her late love’s reaction would be to the fist bump: ‘Is this the accountability you promised for my murder? The blood of MBS’s next victims is on your hands.’
Biden was also read Cengiz’s comments by a reporter, who then asked for the president’s response.
‘I’m sorry she feels that way,’ the president answered. ‘I was straightforward back then. I was straightforward today.’
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