RUTHFULLY YOURS

President Joe Biden’s announcement on July 21 that he would not run for reelection after all upended an already volatile campaign. As media pivoted to cover the likely nomination of Biden’s vice president, Kamala Harris, as the Democratic Party’s candidate, attention shifted away from Biden himself, forestalling efforts to unravel what has been going on in the White House as he has physically and cognitively declined. But it shouldn’t. The American people deserve to know what has been happening behind the scenes of this obfuscatory administration — and the role played by one person in particular: First Lady Jill Biden.

Jill Biden has long claimed to be her husband’s fiercest advocate. Immediately after the president’s disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump in June, she ushered him off the stage and to a local Waffle House, where the president, glassy-eyed and fatigued, pantomimed the motions of a retail politician. Then, at a debate-watch party, he stood beside the podium as Jill attempted to rally the faithful by telling him, “Joe, you did such a great job. . . . You answered every question!” while he stared vacantly into the crowd. Her words sounded both condescending and chilling given Biden’s alarming, confused debate performance. A week spent by the White House trying to reassure Democratic Party stalwarts and especially important donors that the president remains fit to serve failed to quell doubts. At a Hamptons fundraiser a few days after the debate, the first lady was adamant: “Joe isn’t just the right person for the job. He’s the only person for the job.”

Then came the cover of Vogue — not Jill Biden’s first, of course; she has been featured twice before. But this one, published after the debate, pictures her in a $5,000 Ralph Lauren coatdress that several media outlets called “suffragette white.” The first lady looks off into the middle distance with a stoic, expertly airbrushed expression, above an unintentionally revealing headline: “We will decide our future.”

Given the involvement of the first lady in the Biden administration’s promotion of its policies and, until recently, the president’s stubborn refusal to acknowledge his declining condition and popularity, it is worth asking: Who is the “we” in this statement? On social media, critics of the administration often call Jill “Lady MacBiden,” and anyone who does not slavishly follow the mainstream media will have heard Jill compared to Edith Wilson, wife of Woodrow, who effectively ran the nation for her husband while hiding the severity of his physical condition from the American people. That comparison may be apt, but her behavior as second lady and first lady is also reminiscent of another wife of a prominent politician, albeit not an American one: Madame Chiang Kai-shek, wife of the Nationalist Chinese leader.

True, when Jill wants to get out of town, she flees to her house in Rehoboth Beach, Del., with a contingent of family members and Secret Service agents, not to exile in Taiwan with crates full of purloined priceless art, as Madame Chiang did, but the two first ladies have certain similarities. Madame Chiang could be both charming and vicious, as her New York Times obituary noted, and she took the lead in managing policy proposals for her husband, often serving as his translator (she spoke impeccable English). Madame Chiang was also a fierce advocate of her husband and his Nationalist cause, although after meeting her, then–first lady Eleanor Roosevelt noted, “She can talk beautifully about democracy, but she does not know how to live democracy.” She and her husband were, after all, shockingly corrupt.

Such comparisons have been verboten in the mainstream political press, which, like the editors of Vogue, has given the first lady relentlessly positive coverage, even kowtowing to her demand that she be referred to as “Dr. Biden.” (She holds a doctorate in education.) I have seen Capitol Hill staffers (Democrats, all) roll their eyes when asked about Jill Biden’s insistence that she be referred to by the honorific, something she did during her tenure as second lady. One longs for a mainstream reporter with the gimlet eye of Joan Didion, who once offered an excoriating but insightful portrait of the stage-crafted domesticity that served as effective window-dressing for the fierce ambition of a California governor’s wife named Nancy Reagan, or, as Didion dubbed her, “Pretty Nancy.”

Jill Biden’s conceit would be less noticeable if her behavior didn’t demonstrate an unhealthy sense of entitlement and a notable eagerness throughout her husband’s term in office to supplant him as the public face of his administration. Case in point: a picture she posted to her social-media accounts in June 2021 that showed her looking over paperwork at a desk on Air Force One, with the caption, “Prepping for the G7.” Evidently she thought the public would be delighted to know that an unelected official and community-college teacher would be discussing international affairs with world leaders. Recently, at a White House event celebrating Pride month, official video released on White House social-media accounts featured Jill Biden at the podium, saying, “Looking out at all of you, I see America. I hope that all of you feel that freedom and love on the South Lawn today because your home is here.” Not seen on the South Lawn or in the video that day? The other person who calls the White House home: the president.

More recently, after the assassination attempt against former president Donald Trump revealed systemic incompetence in the Secret Service, reporters noted that it was Jill Biden who had pushed for the appointment of Kimberly Cheatle as its director. Cheatle, who has now resigned, served on Joe Biden’s detail when he was vice president and was considered a loyal agent. How many other appointees in Biden’s administration, including those unqualified for their jobs, has Jill Biden insisted upon?

The role of first lady is notoriously challenging, particularly when it comes to navigating public opinion. Those who have done it well, such as Laura Bush and Michelle Obama, understood that whatever their personal accomplishments and opinions, their public role was always a supportive one. They never succumbed to main-character syndrome. Those who did, such as Hillary Clinton and, now, Jill Biden, have assumed that the public wants “two for the price of one,” as President Clinton put it, and learned the hard way that a presidential spouse intent on aggrandizing power is not something Americans find appropriate. Nor are they fooled by Jill Biden’s efforts to pretend to be a woman of the people. “Teaching isn’t just what I do. It’s who I am,” she said at a recent event, according to the Wall Street Journal. But teachers don’t appear on the cover of Vogue dressed in expensive clothing, nor do most of them own second or third homes where they breakfast regularly on “crab-topped eggs Benedict.”

Now that Joe Biden has dropped out of the race, Jill Biden is in a challenging position. A first lady who liked to claim that her husband was the only person capable of “saving democracy” has been shown to have helped keep her husband in power by establishing undemocratic, politburo-levels of secrecy around his mental and physical condition.

As Axios reported, Jill Biden and her aides “created a cocoon” around the president “that initially seemed earnestly protective, but now appears potentially deceptive.” Those aides include Anthony Bernal, the first lady’s chief adviser, as well as Deputy Chief of Staff Annie Tomasini and aide Ashley Williams. This cadre reportedly helped Joe Biden “make up for mental lapses, including prompting him to remember people he has known a long time.” (Biden’s son Hunter, fresh off his felony conviction and no doubt eager for a presidential pardon, has also spent more time in his father’s inner circle. He issued a flattering statement about his father after Biden announced his withdrawal from the race.) Since the earliest days of her husband’s presidency, Jill Biden has directed her anger at others when Joe Biden has failed to perform well in public. Following his disastrous press conference after the even more disastrous pullout of American troops from Afghanistan, for example, Jill attacked staffers for allowing the president to speak too long.

In the coming weeks and months, as attention turns, most likely, to Kamala Harris, Democrats and their allies in the media will make every effort to avoid asking whether Biden is even capable of fulfilling his duties until January. His most ardent defender will be Jill Biden — the person in his administration who proved the most stubborn about relinquishing power.

Before Joe withdrew from the race, the first lady’s rhetoric was combative when the public or media raised even gentle questions about her husband’s fitness to serve. Asked for comment from Vogue about Biden’s debate performance, Jill Biden said, “We will not let those 90 minutes define the four years he’s been president. . . . We will continue to fight.” At a recent commencement address at a community college in Arizona, as the Associated Press reported, Jill Biden encouraged students to ignore the doubters. “The next time someone tells you that you ‘can’t,’ you’re going to say, ‘Oh yeah? Watch me.’”

For the past few years, the American people have watched, and what they have seen is an increasingly feeble and confused man going through the motions of the presidency while, behind the scenes, others make important decisions on his behalf. Now that Biden has dropped out of the race and the mainstream media have pivoted away from questioning his fitness to (ludicrously) hailing his good judgment and character, it is imperative that voters demand some answers about what went on behind closed doors. When the details of the past few years are recorded by historians, Jill Biden will finally achieve the starring role she has long pursued, albeit in a story in which she is not the hero.