After Thursday’s debate, Democratic strategists, media personalities and former staffers were floating the idea of President Joe Biden stepping down from the campaign. On Friday night, the New York Times‘s editorial board called for Biden to end his bid for presidency. The one person who has stayed in his corner is also the person most likely to have more influence than anyone else — his wife, Jill Biden.
While the Democratic party struggles to remain composed with the threat of losing the presidency, and possibly down ballot House and Senate races due to Biden’s subpar debate performance revealing his frail and aging condition; Joe Biden will not succumb to outside calls for him to end his presidential run.
If Biden were to end his reelection bid, it would be a decision he’d make with his sister Valerie Biden Owen, and his longtime adviser and friend Ted Kaufman, but above all it is his wife Jill’s opinion which carries the most weight, according to Axios’s reporting.
Biden’s decision to run for a second term, which would see him reach 86 years old at its cessation, did not include a formal organized process including trusted advisers and political strategists. It was a decision made just by him and his family, with the understanding that Biden had the best shot of defeating Donald Trump in the general election for a second time.
And in spite of Biden’s disastrous debate showing, which included lost trains of thought and eyes glazed over, Jill remains all in.
After assisting Biden off stage, the couple attended a watch party hosted by their campaign in which she praised her husband for doing the bare minimum.
“You answered every question, you knew all the facts,” she said. “And what did Trump do?”
“Lie!” the crowd shouted.
And at a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, the next day, Jill addressed Biden’s performance noting that he’s not a young man.
“I said, ‘Look, Joe, we are not going to let 90 minutes define the four years that you’ve been president,’” she said. “What my husband does know how to do is tell the truth. When he gets knocked down, Joe gets back up, and that’s what we’re doing today.”
“He wants to win and she wants that for him, and for the country,” Elizabeth Alexander, Jill Biden’s communication director, told the New York Times. “She’s his biggest supporter and champion, because she believes in him, and she fears for the future of our country if it goes the other way.”
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However, others see the first lady’s encouragement for her husband as something worse.
“What Jill Biden and the Biden campaign did to Joe Biden tonight — rolling him out on stage to engage in a battle of wits while unarmed — is elder abuse, plain and simple,” Rep. Harriet M. Hageman (R-WY) wrote in a social media post.
