Jill Biden vowed on Thursday to continue the fight for free community college amid reports it would be dropped from her husband's tri...
Jill Biden vowed on Thursday to continue the fight for free community college amid reports it would be dropped from her husband's trillion-dollar social spending package as part of a cost-cutting effort.
Her pledge after she acknowledged the challenges that come with being first lady and the 'hurt and anger' she's met when she's visited red-leaning states that didn't vote for Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
Free college tuition is a priority for Biden, who teaches at a Northern Virginia community college, being one of the first presidential spouses to hold an outside job during her husband's White House tenure.
'We're not giving up. We're not giving up,' Biden said in an interview that aired on ABC's GMA Thursday morning. 'This is round one. This is year one. I'm going to keep going.'
President Biden is trying to bring the two warring wings of the Democratic Party together as he pushes Congress to approve his budget package of social programs. Moderate Democrats are pushing for a scaled-back version of the legislation and Biden's plan for two free-years of community college may be one of the provisions axed as a result.
The White House did not rule out that happening but noted negotiations are ongoing. Biden gave Democrats until the end of the week to come to consensus.
'The president knows that he is not going to get everything he wants in this package,' White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Air Force One on Wednesday.
'If there are things, and there may be things that may not end up in a final package, he will continue to fight for them,' she noted.
Jill Biden vowed to continue the fight for free community college amid reports it would be dropped from President Biden's social programs package
The first lady appeared on ABC's Good Morning America for Breast Cancer Awareness Month and to encourage women to get their mammograms
Jill Biden said it was important to her to visit Republican-leaning states even when she encountered 'anger or hurt' at her stops
Jill Biden spoke Wednesday to the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy
Jill Biden, meanwhile, is also focused on other causes, including urging people to get their COVID vaccines and their mammograms.
The first lady appeared on Good Morning America, wearing a bright pink suit, for Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
She urged women to get their mammograms, brushing aside talk of being too busy.
'I'm busy too. As soon as I got to office there I was off and getting my mammogram. I think I got it in my first month. There's nothing more important than your health. Nothing,' she said.
Biden hit the ground running as first lady, a change of pace from her predecessor Melania Trump, who made rare public appearances during her four years in the White House.
Biden, however, immediately re-established the Joining Forces Initiative she started with Michelle Obama and announced a platform of issues important to her, including fighting cancer, ending child poverty, increased teacher pay, and improved education.
But, in a speech to the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy at the Kennedy Center on Wednesday, she acknowledged nothing can prepare a person for the position of first lady.
'There's nothing that can prepare you to be first lady. We aren't elected. We have to define this role for ourselves. And we are thrust into the national spotlight in a way I know none of us could have anticipated,' she said.
It was a rare bit of insight on the largely ceremonial role as presidential spouse. Biden is not only in the job, she was able to observe it up close as wife of the vice president, when Joe Biden was Barack Obama's running mate.
Barbara Bush, who died in 2018, also served as spouse of the vice president and a president.
Jill Biden acknowledged that 'as first lady, everything you say or do carries more weight.'
'I went to a bakery to buy Valentine's Day cupcakes and the fact that I wore my hair up in a scrunchie made national news. Can you believe that? I was so surprised,' she said.
She also recounted visiting red states, states that voted for Donald Trump instead of her husband, and why it was important for her to go there, even when she encountered 'anger or hurt.'
She pointed out that 'I'm their first lady too.'
'There are times when the role of first lady pushes you to show up, even when it's uncomfortable - when it calls you to rise to the needs of a moment,' she said.
'People have asked me why. Why go to Mississippi or Alabama or Alaska - why talk to people who will never agree with you? And the answer is that I'm their first lady too. There have been times when I'm met with anger or hurt. But I've also found that the common values that unite us are deeper than our divisions,' she added.
But she said, people have more in common than not.
'I’ve seen how, despite our differences, families across the country want the same things: the chance to work hard and build a good life for our families,' she noted.
She pointed out she visited 32 states this year. Many of those stops were in Southern and Western states, which have low vaccination rates, to push for more shots in arms amid rising COVID outbreaks.
Biden didn't always get a warm reception.
When Jill Biden told a Nashville crowd in June about Tennessee's low vaccine rate, they booed: 'Well, you're booing yourselves!,' she told them as they laughed
Emmitt Smith with first lady Jill Biden at a vaccine clinic in Dallas when she visited that state in June to push for more COVID vaccines
She was greeted with protesters when she visited a Phoenix, Arizona, middle school in June.
The protesters honked their car horns from outside the venue as the first lady spoke about the importance of being vaccinated. They waved signs at Biden left the school, many of which that read: 'Go home'; 'You are not welcome'; 'Kids don't need their covid vaccine' and 'Trump won.'
In June, a Nashville crowd booed when Biden told them 'only 3 in 10 Tennesseans are vaccinated.'
'Well, you're booing yourselves!,' the first lady told the audience as she appeared at the Ole Smoky Distillery alongside country star Brad Paisley and actress Kimberly Williams.
On part of that same tour, at a stop in Mississippi, Biden couched her speech in spiritual terms, speaking of faith in the deeply religious state, while urging people to trust science and get the vaccine.
'I feel like a miracle's here,' Biden, a Catholic, said during a visit to a clinic at Jackson State University, a historically Black college in the Mississippi capital. 'We're getting back to the things that we've lost for so long, like hugging the people.'
Biden has used local star power to help her in the push to raise vaccination rates. During a stop in Texas in June, she brought football star Emmitt Smith when she visited a vaccination clinic in Dallas.
'We're going to get a touch down,' the first lady said as she encouraged Texans to get a shot in the arm.
'In the sports sense we're in the fourth quarter and the game is not finished,' Smith said as he reminded people to get vaccinated.
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