Jill Biden’s travel shows breadth covered by first lady Florida Dallas Texas Melania Trump Major League Baseball
After Jill Biden made a frantic two-day swing through Dallas, Houston, and Phoenix promoting COVID-19 vaccinations, Jill Biden didn’t relax on the four-hour flight back to Washington
She prepared for more journeys in a week that alone showed the range of missions and emotions associated with the First Lady’s movements across the country.
In 36 hours last week, Biden went from clinking beer mugs with Doug Emhoff, husband of Vice President Kamala Harris at an Astros baseball game in Houston, to going to the president in Florida to comfort families whose loved ones were lost or missing the collapse of the Surfside condo.
Along the way, she continued the juggling act that comes with being the first lady continuing her career outside of the White House. In Texas, she took an hour to attend a book club meeting in Virginia with women at Community College, where she teaches English.
Jill Biden’s travel pace is the same as the President’s.
In the week leading up to her stints in Texas and Arizona, she pushed for vaccinations in Mississippi and Tennessee and days later in the cities of Kissimmee and Tampa, Florida.
Your stop at the Astros game should help showcase a Major League Baseball vaccination boost that offers incentives like tickets to future games and a replica World Series ring.
“It’s safe. It’s effective. It’s free,” she explained of the COVID-19 vaccines.
Jill Biden spends most of the July 4th weekend performing in Maine, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania at events celebrating progress in fighting the coronavirus.
“I think we knew from the start that she was going to be a more active first lady,” says Myra Gutin, who studies First Ladies at Rider University in New Jersey. “She appears to me personally as someone who wants to be busy and someone who wants to help.”
Jill Biden has said she doesn’t want to waste a minute of her time as first lady. She’s covered more miles than some of her predecessors at this point in her husbands administration, Gutin said.
Laura Bush, a former elementary school teacher and librarian, spent her first few months as first lady planning an educational summit to host at Georgetown University in July 2001 and supporting the No Child Left Behind Education Act, the country’s first major domestic policy initiative new administration.
Michelle Obama used her opening months to visit cabinet departments and thank federal employees for their services. Melania Trump lived in Trump Tower in Manhattan until their son Barron finished school and they joined President Donald Trump at the White House in June 2017.
Anita McBride, a First Lady Fellow at American University, said Jill Biden came well prepared for the role after spending most of her adult life in public. Joe Biden was a US Senator when they married and had served in Congress for 36 years, followed by eight years as Vice President.
Unlike Michelle Obama or Melania Trump, Jill Biden, 70, has no young children to attract her attention. The first lady also likes to travel and is busy.
It has not escaped the President how busy his wife, who is 44 years old, is these days. He even suggested that the accelerated life in the White House had affected their “romantic time”.
“She has traveled all over the country. And to make big events for me … and for the country, “the president told Vogue magazine for a current profile of his wife. “And so I’ll find out I’m working on a damn important speech and I’m distracted. And then maybe I’m not working on one and I want to hang out with her, and she’s working on an important speech! Or grading papers. “
“We have to find a way, and I sincerely mean that, to steal time for each other,” he said.
McBride, Laura Bush’s chief of staff, said that while it is important for presidents to leave Washington and spend time among the people, they can take criticism for spending too much time traveling and too little time caring the people’s business.
“It’s a balance for presidents to do both and a great benefit when the first lady can help,” McBride said in an email.
To that end, Jill Biden has emerged as a top promoter of her husband’s policies, as well as her own problems and concerns, ranging from child tax credits and a proposal for a free community college to helping military families and finding a cure for them Cancer enough.
By Sunday, she will have made 20 sole official air or car trips outside of Washington, including a handful of overnight stays on the West Coast and the Southwest. The count doesn’t include her local Washington stops or trips with the President, such as the stop at Surfside last week where she placed a large bouquet of white irises on the curb of a makeshift memorial near the collapsed condo building.
Meanwhile, the President’s trip to Michigan on Saturday will be his 21st trip on Air Force One for official business, including last month’s trip to Europe. The count does not include Biden’s weekends at his Wilmington, Delaware home or the presidential retreat at Camp David. It also doesn’t include Biden’s trip to Wilmington to attend a former employee’s wake and a midweek vacation in June to his home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, for the first lady’s birthday.
The first lady said she would keep traveling the country encouraging people, especially young people, to get vaccinated to fight off COVID-19.
In Texas and Arizona, the first lady tried to penetrate misinformation about the vaccines by assuring people that the doses were tested safe, effective, and thorough. She stressed that the jabs are free, that people get free trips to clinics, and that no appointments are required. She also noticed that the syringe itself is quick enough to not hurt and that she was vaccinated even though she hates needles.
At a clinic in an area of Phoenix where vaccination rates are lagging behind, she was making small talk with a girl when an alcohol swab was rubbed on her arm in preparation for COVID-19 vaccination.
Then the vaccinator pushed the needle into the girl’s arm and pulled it out.
“It’s over,” Biden exclaimed and applauded before moving on.
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