“Why doesn’t Joe ever do television?” Jill Biden asked out loud.
The silence in the Chevy Suburban was deafening. Who’s going to tell her?
Almost a year into his third campaign for President and 72 hours until the Iowa caucus, our backs were against a wall, our opponents were driving the news with fresh sound bytes, and Joe Biden was MIA on TV.
His media absence made little sense to me. After nearly five decades of using his gift of gab to charm and disarm, why was he now on a leash and gagged in his quest for the Democratic nomination?
I agreed with Jill — her husband should be a constant presence on the cable and broadcast shows — but I bit my tongue, deferring to her chief of staff.
Finally, 10 months into the campaign, three days after Jill questioned the approach, and hours after our gut-punch showing in Iowa, the candidate was booked on a Sunday show. A few days later, he was on "The View." It would be the turning point in our 2020 effort.
After a solid Soulcyle workout ahead of a long day of campaign stops, Jill, Anthony (her chief of staff), Jordan (her long-time personal aide), and I packed ourselves so tightly in the back of a small plane that our knees knocked against each other. We sat on the tarmac and listened to the lyrics of a song Dr. B heard in cycling class, "The Champion,” by Carrie Underwood.
“I am invincible, unbreakable
Unstoppable, unshakable
They knock me down, I get up again”
That’s the story of Joe Biden’s life — getting up again. His partner of over four decades knew what he could do, even when others internally and externally doubted him. "The Champion" instantly became the unofficial Biden Campaign tune, cranked up loud in gymnasiums across the country, even in defiance of our successive defeats in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada.
Jill’s instincts from 43 years as a political spouse kicked in when it mattered most: Let Joe be Joe.
Dr. Biden isn’t a strategist or a policymaker. She is an introvert in an extrovert’s game. After three years of traveling by her side as her press secretary, spokesman, and adviser, I can fully attest to her aversion to politics. She poses in photo lines with hundreds of supporters at record speed and runs ahead of schedule (which occasionally would force the motorcade to “slow roll” to her events). Press interviews could be kept to five minutes; unlike her husband, a journalist would have the chance to ask five questions and receive five answers. She listens more than she speaks.
President Biden, like all natural politicians, enjoys schmoozing and glad-handing. While he worked the room, Dr. B. would wait for him backstage — sometimes grading papers — or depart independently. She has always wanted her husband to be who he is and not change his style, even if hers differs. She saw how he resonated with people. She just wanted to let Joe be Joe.
She doesn’t wear her heart on her sleeve or share emotion publicly like he does. While the President connects and relates to others through shared grief, she isn’t as comfortable professing her personal pain; her guard is always up. As many journalists who have struggled to chronicle her know, there is only so much you’ll ever get from a Jill Biden interview. Blame the thick skin, scar tissue, and formidable instincts developed in the decades since the shy senior at the University of Delaware started dating a handsome young senator.
At former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral, Steven Ford read his father Gerald Ford’s posthumous eulogy, noting that “while the Carter and Ford men were a decidedly mixed record when it came to lobbying Congress, Rosalynn and Betty were unbeatable in their advocacy for millions of people whom they brought out of the shadows of despair and shame.” Despite Jill Biden’s position and platform, she rarely advocated for public policy changes.
She privately passed up opportunities to lead on topics that could have elevated her profile and enhanced her influence. Hers was a different, and inspiring, path: choosing to keep her full-time day job as a college professor. That decision provided an example for girls and women and gave the country a fresh, evolved view of what the first lady can be.
But she also developed an innovative approach to her role, turning the East Wing into a presidential campaign-style surrogate operation. Rather than promoting her own priorities, she championed her husband’s vision, agenda, and accomplishments.
Her team in the East Wing was fully integrated as a partner with her husband’s team in the West Wing. They coordinated over how she could best be used as a messenger to further the administration’s objectives. Jill took the case for his signature initiatives nationwide, touting COVID relief, infrastructure investments, and inflation reduction.
Jill was always more comfortable on the permanent campaign trail, touting her husband in stump speeches and raising money. But even she, in her final act as a political spouse, knew there were limits to permanence despite claims and comparisons by some in the media and on the political right to Lady Macbeth, Edith Wilson, and Meghan Markle. When the appeals were made, in three separate in-person conclaves to the President to step aside, by leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries and, yes, one of their longest and closest of friends, Nancy Pelosi, Biden decided on his own.
No one knows the 46th President better. Over 47 years of marriage, she’s been his best friend, loyal defender, and strongest advocate. Ever since she met Senator Joe Biden on a blind date in March 1975, she’s always been a student of politics, never a practitioner. She knew when his skill and savvy were being wasted and what to say to get campaign staff to listen, as she did four years ago in the dark days of the Democratic primary.
Advisers, strategists, and staff are responsible for providing the boss with the uncomfortable hard truths about their vulnerabilities, challenges, and realities. The decision that likely will haunt the Democratic Party for decades to come, a decision made more than two years ago, never rested on Jill Biden’s shoulders. She wanted what she’s always wanted: let Joe be Joe.
Michael LaRosa is a former Special Assistant to President Biden and Press Secretary to First Lady Jill Biden. He is a Partner at Ballard Partners, a bipartisan government affairs firm, and he is an Adjunct Professor of Politics and Media at Seton Hall University. Michael is also a lifetime member of FLARE, the First Lady’s Association for Research and Education.