'Will not let those 90 minutes define the four years he’s been president,' First Lady says
Democrats are in a ‘full-blown panic’ over Biden’s debate performance: Trey Gowdy
Fox News host Trey Gowdy says President Biden looked ‘feeble and lost’ during the CNN Presidential Debate on ‘Sunday Night in America.’
First Lady Jill Biden said Sunday that her family will not allow the president's brutal debate performance to define his presidency and will "continue to fight."
In a quote thrown onto the start of an already completed puff piece story in Vogue, Biden told the magazine that her husband "will always do what's best for the country."
"The debate on June 27 spurred a discussion about whether President Joe Biden should remain the Democratic nominee," Vogue added to Maya Singer's cover story published on Monday. "Dr. Jill Biden, the first lady and Vogue’s August cover subject, has fiercely defended her husband and stood by him. Reached by phone on June 30 at Camp David, where the Biden family had gathered for the weekend, she told Vogue that they ‘will not let those 90 minutes define the four years he’s been president. We will continue to fight.’ President Biden, she added, 'will always do what’s best for the country.'"
"Whatever happens in the weeks and months between now and November, it is Dr. Biden who will remain the president’s closest confidant and advocate," Vogue added.
US President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden arrive at a campaign event in Raleigh, North Carolina, on June 28, 2024. (Photo by Mandel NGAN / AFP) (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images) (MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)
Since Biden's halting, unsure showing against former President Trump last week, calls from liberal media allies have abounded for the president to drop out of the race over concerns about his mental fitness and ability to withstand his opponent.
There have also been reports of concerned donors and Democratic Party "panic" over his performance, but the campaign has thus far held firm that Biden, who already clinched the delegates necessary to win the 2024 nomination, isn't going anywhere.
One of the main reasons is the steadfast support of Jill Biden. One NBC News report cited one source familiar with the family's dynamics that the person with "ultimate influence" over him is his wife.
She didn't help matters with the president's image shortly after the debate. In a rally in Atlanta, she told her husband enthusiastically, "Joe, you did such a great job! You answered every question, you knew all the facts!" Her tone and demeanor reminded some critics of a teacher or parent praising a child.
President Joe Biden looks down as he participates in the first presidential debate of the 2024 elections with former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at CNN's studios in Atlanta, Georgia, on June 27, 2024. (ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)
The Vogue story itself focused on interviews with Jill Biden conducted long before the debate. Like other liberal magazines that have profiled her, it was highly favorable and supported her framing of the race between Biden and Trump as one between democracy and tyranny.
"And on the other side?" Singer wrote. "Pick your poison. Christian nationalist, nativist, racist, misogynist, queerphobic, neofascist, techno-authoritarian—they boil down to the same idea, which is that some group or other ought to dominate everyone else. All they differ on is who occupies the magic circle. Or, in TV terms, sits on the Iron Throne."
Of Biden, Singer wrote she may be the only person listening in the whole country.
"'You know, Joe’s really the talker, I’m more quiet,' the first lady mentions at one point, during our East Wing chat. For some reason, the comment stays with me, bouncing around my head on the Acela back to New York," Singer wrote. "Quiet. That word. We live in such loud times. An endless reverberation chamber. So many opinions. So much trauma, so much anger. So many people jockeying to be heard. And no one listening. Except, it seems, Jill Biden."
