THE BIDENS GET REAL ABOUT JOY
AFTER A BREAKNECK FIRST FEW WEEKS, THE PRESIDENT AND FIRST LADY GET REAL ABOUT THEIR JOY, SURVIVING HEARTBREAK – AND THEIR RESOLVE TO GIVE THE US A FRESH START
With his presidency just seven and a half days old, Joe Biden had already put his signature to 37 executive orders – on everything from the COVID-19 pandemic to the climate crisis to transgender rights – when he strode into the White House Blue Room practically vibrating with the urgency of all he plans to do. “How long is this going to take?” he asked. “I need to get back to the Oval.”
Only when Biden, 78, sat down beside his wife, Jill, did he seem to exhale, taking a pause from the nation’s crises to get misty-eyed about his grandchildren and his “surreal” return to a building he frequented over the course of his 44 years in public office – first as a US senator from Delaware, then as President Barack Obama’s Vice President – but now calls home. Some things are just as the Bidens remembered, starting with Michelle Obama’s kitchen garden. “The garden is going strong!” the First Lady, 69, reported.
And Jill, who goes by Dr Biden – Dr B to her students – is back to teaching English at Northern Virginia Community College (over Zoom for now). Other things are very different in the White House the Bidens moved in to only hours after the Trumps vacated on January 20. One sweet change: there is now a crib in the family quarters for Hunter Biden’s baby son Beau.
In their first interview as President and First Lady, edited here for space, the Bidens shared the “magic” of their first days in the White House and the miracle that their 43-year marriage only grew stronger through the highs and lows of getting here.
Is the White House starting to feel like home?
THE PRESIDENT It’s surreal … but it’s comfortable. We were here for eight years, just not in this part of the residence. Spent a lot of time in the Cabinet Room and the Oval with the president. So upstairs
[in the private family quarters] is new.
DR BIDEN The residence staff have been so great, trying to make it feel like home for us. We have family pictures all around, our books, some furniture we brought from home [in Delaware].
And you brought bunk beds for the grandchildren?
THE PRESIDENT We used to have two sets of bunk beds at home. They outgrew them. Although we now have one little [11-month-old]. DR BIDEN So there’s a room with a crib! Like so many American grandparents, you’ve been unable to hug them all year, except when they went through seven days of quarantine and testing for the election and Inauguration? DR BIDEN That’s right. THE PRESIDENT Two of our grandchildren live only [800 metres] from our home in Delaware, so they’d come over, sit outside on the lawn, and we’d talk to them from the porch and eat ice cream. I was bribing them with my Häagen-Dazs [laughs]. Your Inauguration was like no other before and hopefully no other again. What was it like for you to step out on that West Front of the Capitol and see that sea of flags where thousands of people should have been?
THE PRESIDENT This was maybe one of the most consequential inaugurations in a long, long time – not because I was being sworn in, but in the sense of what the state of the nation is, between everything from COVID to unemployment to racial inequality. We wanted to make sure that as many Americans could participate as possible, and it turns out millions of people watched it. We have such an incredible opportunity as a country now. Not because of me but because the American people sort of had the blinders ripped off, and they realised that, man, we have problems, but we also have enormous opportunities.
DR BIDEN And I don’t mean to interrupt, but I thought it was really uplifting – from the musical talent to the poet to Joe’s speech offering hope to all Americans. So even though we were in a pandemic, it just felt so positive to me.
What was your favourite moment?
DR BIDEN Certainly I loved Amanda Gorman! The whole day seemed so surreal, but it hit me at that moment when they opened those doors that Joe walked out to go and be sworn in. I could feel this lump in my throat, and two of my grandkids said, “Nana, we saw that it hit you.” That was so funny because I thought I was hiding it so well, but that was the moment it became real for me.
THE PRESIDENT For me, it was being sworn in, looking at the Chief [Justice] and seeing Jill hold the Bible, our son and daughter standing there, and I could see behind them my grandchildren. It just made me feel so proud that we were all part of history here ... DR BIDEN ... together.
THE PRESIDENT For us, family is the
“Americans [now] realise we have problems, but we also have enormous opportunities” —PRESIDENT BIDEN
beginning, middle and end. And Jill’s going to warn me not to say this because I sometimes get emotional, but it meant so much that Beau was there – our son Beau, who was an incredible man [he died of brain cancer in 2015 at age 46]. He was there in his namesake, his nephew Beau-y. It just seemed ...
DR BIDEN ... complete. You danced with your baby grandson that night, here in this room. THE PRESIDENT And I can’t dance very well. DR BIDEN No [laughs]. It was just a little family dance party – no inaugural ball or big afterparty.
THE PRESIDENT No place that I would have rather been than with the kids.
DR BIDEN It was still magical.
THE PRESIDENT From the time each of these children were born, their grandfather had been either a United States senator or a vice president, their dad [Beau] had been the [Delaware] attorney general or abroad as a major in the United States military. And they had to learn to be happy and grieve in public. There is no private time for them. So when we got in the White House, I remember opening the door and walking through, and it was like, “OK, it’s us. It’s us.”
DR BIDEN The excitement was palpable. You know your granddaughters are big stars on social media?
DR BIDEN Oh yeah. We’re trying to curtail that a little bit.
Do you notice in any of them the budding seeds of taking over the family business someday?
DR BIDEN Maybe one of them.
THE PRESIDENT I don’t know that they ever want to run for office, but I can say this as a grandpa: they’re so damn informed. Our oldest grandchild, Naomi, named after my deceased daughter [Biden’s first wife, Neilia, and their baby girl were killed in a car crash in 1972], she is a lawyer now. Graduated from Columbia Law School. My No. 2, Finnegan Biden, I call her my secret weapon. This kid is more informed, I promise you, than the vast majority of people that I engage with. As is our No. 3, Maisy. She’s in college. It’s kind of like if you were raised in a family where your mum was the president of a bank, you’d know about mortgages. With them, we’ve never separated them from what we’ve done. So they’ve met everybody that comes in our orbit, and they have a sense of obligation, like our daughter. She’s a social worker, and she’s saving the world.
DR BIDEN They’ve never known anything but public office, public service.
You wrote in [your memoir]
Promise Me, Dad that the two of
you grow stronger and closer under pressure. We’ve seen public marriages – in politics especially – crumble under stress. So what is your secret?
THE PRESIDENT She has a backbone like a ramrod. Everybody says marriage is 50/50. Well, sometimes you have to be 70/30. Thank God that when I’m really down, she steps in, and when she’s really down, I’m able to step in. We’ve been really supportive of one another. I’ve read all that data as well about families under pressure, and that’s why I’m glad she kept her profession. It’s really important that she’s an educator, although she took off two years when we first got married because the boys were little. It’s important that she has the things that she cares a great deal about, her independence. And yet we share each other’s dreams.
DR BIDEN All that we’ve been through together – the highs, the lows and certainly tragedy and loss – there’s that quote that says sometimes you become stronger in the fractured places. That’s what we try to achieve.
Could you do this job without her? THE PRESIDENT We each could do our jobs, but not as well as we do them. I don’t think I would have stayed involved in public life. Jill came along at a really important point and put my family back together. She’s the glue that held it together, and I knew that I wanted to marry her shortly after I met her. When I first became vice president, it was Valentine’s Day, and the night before, Jill got the maintenance people to bring a [five metre] ladder to my office, and she took that kind of paint that kids use in school ... and in every pane – there’s like 20 panes in each of these four windows that are [four metres] high – she drew hearts and “Joe loves Jill”. A reporter told me that day, “Everybody says you and your wife have a great love affair,” and I said I think so. It’s not that we don’t fight and argue sometimes. I’m just lucky. DR BIDEN Well, after 43 years of marriage there’s really not that much more to fight about [laughs].
And any pranks here in the White House? I know that you’re the practical joker THE PRESIDENT Oh God, don’t get her going, please [laughs].
DR BIDEN Not yet. Stay tuned!
On Inauguration Night you were wearing a wrist corsage. Was that your husband’s doing?
DR BIDEN Yes! It started a long time ago – I love gardenias, and so Joe would buy me a wrist corsage of gardenias.
THE PRESIDENT For every single special occasion. I think it’s important to – and Jill does the same thing – let each other know that no matter how much time has gone by, she comes down the steps, and [his hand taps his chest] my heart still goes a little boom, boom, boom, boom. For real.
And is she a romantic?
THE PRESIDENT Yes, but I’m the one that is the seeker all the time. She makes me work for it. She’s a very independent woman who wants a very traditional man who comes in on a white horse and makes sure everything works out all right.
Given the stakes in the pandemic and the economic crisis, do you lean into prayer to help you lead?
THE PRESIDENT I don’t want to proselytise.
My religion, for me, is a safe place. I never miss mass, because I can be alone. I mean, I’m with my family but just kind of absorbing the fundamental principle that you’ve got to treat everyone with dignity. Jill, when she wants me to get a real message, she tapes it on the mirror above the sink where I shave. And she put up a great quote from [Danish philospher Søren] Kierkegaard saying, “Faith sees best in the dark.” Other people may meditate. For me, prayer gives me hope, and it centres me. Both of you have had a very busy first week, and, Mr President, Vice President Kamala Harris has been at your side for most of it. Does she have drop-in privileges at the Oval Office?
THE PRESIDENT Sure she does. I made the same deal with her that Barack and I made: I wanted her available to participate in everything that I did; I wanted her to be the last person in the room on every important decision. We have lunch alone once a week – that’s the deal – when we’re both in-country, which we’ll be for a while because of COVID-19. I see her all the time. DR BIDEN I was so proud when Joe chose a woman to be his vice president, and I think it meant so much to all women across this country. You also got right to work as First Lady [see box] and are also teaching classes. DR BIDEN I teach writing. I taught all eight years that I was Second Lady. That’s my passion, that’s my life.
THE PRESIDENT The thing that surprises me is how much energy Jill gets from her students. The students she teaches, these are foreign students or people who weren’t the people who graduated from high school, but they’re remaking their lives. It’s an inspiration. It’s energy for Jill, but it’s a lot of work.
One of the first things you did in your new role was sign tough new ethics rules for appointees. As a father who saw Hunter’s [business deals in Ukraine and China] come under scrutiny, are you putting up guardrails for family and friends, too, to avoid any appearance of wrongdoing? THE PRESIDENT We’re going to run this like the Obama-Biden Administration. No-one in our family and extended family is going to be involved in any government undertaking or foreign policy. And nobody has an office in this place. They always have access to Pop and Nana, but nobody – I remember years ago an accountant said, “You know, you can charge [the Senate] part of the [petrol] you use in the vehicle at your home.” And I said no. Here’s how I look at it: the foul line is [four metres] away from the basket. Never get me closer than [five metres], because it really is a matter of the public trust.
DR BIDEN And we need to rebuild that trust in government.
You said the other day that Donald Trump has to stand trial in the Senate on the impeachment charges otherwise “there would be a worse effect if it didn’t happen. What would be the worse effect?
THE PRESIDENT He was impeached by the House, and it has to move forward otherwise it makes a mockery of the system.
It’s probably not likely to get 17 Republicans to change their view and convict on impeachment, but I think it’s important that there be certain basic standards. I’m not looking for any retribution. My job is to try to heal the country and move us forward, because I think we have so many opportunities as a country.
Where do you think the country will be at this time next year?
THE PRESIDENT I hope we have fundamentally returned to normal as it relates to COVID-19 – and it’s going to be hard, because they’re predicting another 100,000-150,000 dead unless we take precautions, even with the vaccine. I hope we have really begun to make inroads on equity for all people … where they can have decent jobs and decent opportunities, and the economy is growing, and people are back to a degree of optimism about themselves and their families.
DR BIDEN That’s our prayer.
“That quote, ‘Sometimes you become stronger in the fractured places,’ that’s what we try to achieve” —JILL BIDEN