Former first lady Jill Biden is pushing back against criticism from a fellow Democrat who served in her husband’s administration, accusing him of mischaracterizing her new memoir and challenging him to confront her directly.
Speaking Wednesday at a sold-out event at Sixth and I Synagogue in Washington—the second stop on her book tour for View from the East Wing—Biden responded to remarks from Andrew Bates, a former deputy press secretary under President Joe Biden. Bates told the New York Post this week that the book “reopened a painful conversation for the party” about the 2024 election loss, adding that Democrats “had a duty to win and we didn’t.”
“I just want to say that my book has one chapter on the political wounds. One,” Biden told journalist Paola Ramos, a MSN Now contributor and former Obama administration official. “The rest of the book contains my reflections of the four years at the White House. There’s a lot of challenges, yes. But let me tell you, there’s a lot of joy in there.”
Biden ticked off highlights like her role as a community college professor, trips to Camp David, and global travel. “And so that is one small part. So I want to say to Andrew: Call me up. If somebody has something to say, then say it to my face,” she said.
Bates did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The exchange comes amid broader Democratic soul-searching over the party’s losses in 2024, including internal debates about messaging and strategy. Biden’s book, which covers the 2024 campaign and her husband’s disastrous debate with President Trump, has added fuel to those conversations.
Biden repeated her account of the night of the debate, saying she was “frightened” for her husband’s health and questioned whether he had suffered a stroke. “It’s not like we’re keeping a secret. We don’t know,” she said, adding that she supported him onstage because “I’m his wife. I’m going to support him no matter what.”
She acknowledged seeing Joe Biden age during his presidency. “He was slower, he stutters. And so at night, if he was super tired, I could hear the stutter a little bit more,” she said. “I thought well this is just natural aging. This is him getting older.”
On her husband’s recent prostate cancer diagnosis, Biden said the family is “doing fine” but “not doing great.” Asked if the former president has empathy for Trump, she turned to the audience: “What do you guys think?” The crowd erupted in laughter and shouts of “no.”
Biden also took a veiled swipe at Trump, recalling the bitter cold on Inauguration Day 2025. “Hell was freezing over,” she cracked. She urged young people to “keep the faith in our government,” acknowledging that “we’ve all kind of lost faith in our institutions.” Her advice: “Don’t keep complaining. Don’t keep screaming at that TV. Do something. We’ve got to turn this around.”
