Jill Biden Says Husband Was 'Essence of the Same Joe Biden'

In an interview released Sunday, former first lady Jill Biden said her husband was slowing down when he dropped out of the presidential race in 2024 but not declining mentally. He was "the essence of the same Joe Biden," she told CBS while acknowledging that the presidency "ages you, quickly." She said she didn't see any cognitive diminishment in the president, the Hill reports. Democrats and fundraisers have criticized her interview tour and new memoir as not helpful to the party.

Jill Biden described allies' urging her husband to leave the race as "hurtful"; she acknowledged in a previous interview that she thought he was "having a stroke" during his confused campaign debate with Donald Trump. The former first lady also defended White House medical care, though she noted her husband's later prostate cancer diagnosis was "somehow" missed. Jill Biden is promoting her book, View From the East Wing: A Memoir, which is due out Tuesday. She said in the interview that writing it was "cathartic." CBS posted an extended video of the interview here.

A former White House aide to Joe Biden said his wife could be hurting the party's efforts to win the midterm elections. "We have a lot of momentum in our favor," Meghan Hays told the Los Angeles Times, adding, "when we get pulled back into conversations about age and the election in '24, it's never gonna be a good place for Democrats." John Morgan, a Florida lawyer who was a major Biden fundraiser for the 2024 race, agrees that "ripping open a healing scab is never helpful." He added: "In my opinion, she was the main problem. She loved the life and didn't want it to end."