Jill Biden Pays Tribute to President Biden in Short and Sweet Speech
Jill Biden Pays Tribute to President Biden in Short and Sweet Speech
The first lady tells voters ‘it will take us all.’
On an early summer evening in June 2023 First Lady Dr. Jill Biden told a group of 50 well-connected donors on the Upper East Side of Manhattan that her husband “knows how to get things done.”
It was the evening Dr. Biden kicked off President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign. For just over a year, the first lady would travel across the country as the key messenger of her husband’s accomplishments. And on that initial June evening, Dr. Biden shared this message from her husband with the crowd:
“Tell them to be optimistic, because I am, so let's finish the job,” she said at the time before heading out to two more fundraising events in San Francisco and another for donors in Los Angeles that same week.
That was Dr. Biden’s schedule for more than a year. In between the campaign stops, there were state dinners including a first-ever dinner for educators, events in the East Room and visits to communities across the country to help promote her Joining Forces, Women’s Health Research, Cancer Moonshot, and education initiatives.
Before a stadium-filled crowd at the Democratic National Convention inside Chicago’s United Center Monday, a visibly moved Jill Biden took the stage before a chanting crowd to which she replied, “I love you, too.”
She spoke about the moments in their 50-year marriage that she said made her fall in love with him “all over again.” They were the quiet moments. Like, when the president stops in a rope line to provide reassurance to someone grieving or to encourage a child with a stutter to find their confidence.
Then, she spoke to this pivotal moment:
“And weeks ago when I saw him dig deep into his soul and decide to no longer seek reelection and endorse Kamala Harris,” she said.
The camera panned to Vice President Harris in the stands when she mouthed, “Thank you, Jill.”
The crowd roared, waving green signs with “JILL” printed in bold white lettering.
The first lady went on to say that her husband knows, with faith and conviction, that a country’s strength doesn’t come from intimidation or cruelty. Rather, from “the small acts of kindness that heal deep wounds from service to the communities that make us who we are.”
This was a first lady speech unlike any other, Diana Carlin, professor emerita of communication at Saint Louis University, told East Wing Magazine.
“As part of a historic election cycle and convention that is no longer about her husband, she gave a short speech that provided a personal account of his qualities that characterized his career, presidency, and his family life,” said Carlin, co-author of Remember the First Ladies: The Legacies of America’s History-Making Women. “She showed that a few well-chosen words can accomplish many objectives. Through her brevity she effectively ceded the stage to her successor, Doug Emhoff.”
In less than five minutes, said Elizabeth Natalle, a First Ladies Studies scholar and professor emerita in communication from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Jill Biden professed love, kindness, and the strength of her husband as the motivation for rising above oneself and uniting the country through voting for the Harris-Waltz ticket.
“That would have to be one of the shortest speeches by a first lady in the history of first ladies convention speeches,” Natalle said.
Instead of the wife of a candidate extolling the virtues of her husband, Jill Biden deferred to her daughter, who introduced the president, and husband to praise the accomplishments of the Biden Administration, Natalle added.
It should be considered what Dr. Biden's rhetorical mission was in this case: her husband is handing over the reins to Kamala Harris, so her job really was to reinforce the goodness of her husband (as all first ladies do in convention speeches) and to show support for Harris [and] Waltz with grace,” Natalle said. “Mission accomplished.”
Biden closed with a message to voters that echoed the same urgency the first lady took to all those campaign fundraisers for the past year.
“The future of this country is in the hands of those in this room and all of you watching at home,” she said. “It’s going to take all of us.”