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Dialuna 30 november 2020

Jill Biden, Joe’s chief protector, to step up as first lady

and put her arms around the
man, turned him around and
helped push him away.
A month later in Los Ange-
les, she similarly blocked one
protester, then a second one,
who had stormed the stage
while Joe Biden was deliver-
ing his Super Tuesday victory
speech.
When the first one ap-
proached waving an anti-
dairy sign and yelling, Jill
Biden stepped between the
protester and her husband.
She did the same with the
second one, this time putting
her arms up to block the in-
trusion.
Both were removed without
coming in contact with the
candidate. After the 27-sec-
ond confrontation, Jill turned
around saying, “We’re okay,”
and encouraged Joe to keep
the event going. The Bidens
then said it might be time
for Secret Service protection,
and they got it soon after.
“I worry about Jill,” Joe
Biden said.
(AP) — She’s fended off ton and Michelle Obama, for daily life. The Bidens of- first presidential campaign
protesters who made a example. fered themselves as agents of started to look bleak, people She’s been protective during
run at her husband. She’s She intends to keep work- comfort at a time of loss and were constantly looking for the pandemic.
moved him farther from ing as a college professor, grief, experiences they know cracks in our team. We all felt On Oct. 5 at New Castle Air-
reporters during the coro- which would make her the well particularly after their scrutinized, but I refused to port in Delaware, she moved
navirus pandemic. She’s only first lady to keep her day son Beau Biden died of brain show weakness.” her husband back from
supported his presidential job outside the home. And cancer in 2015. It showed early in the 2020 members of the media as he
ambitions again and again if four decades in the public Jill Biden entered her hus- race when several women spoke outside his campaign
— except in 2004, when eye are any indication, she’ll band’s life as a comfort. accused Biden of inappropri- plane before a trip to Miami.
she deployed a novel mes- continue being Biden’s chief Joe Biden’s first wife and ate touching. The candidate Like many American families,
saging technique to keep protector. young daughter were killed denied acting inappropri- the Bidens spent Thanksgiv-
Joe Biden from running. The role isn’t completely in a car accident in 1972. Jill ately but acknowledged that ing differently this year. They
unfamiliar territory for Jill Biden helped raise his sur- social norms had changed. stayed at their house in Re-
“No,” Jill Biden, then clad Biden. She’s been a politi- viving young sons, Beau and He pledged that he would hoboth, Delaware, rather
in a bikini, wrote in Sharpie cal wife the entire time she’s Hunter, before giving birth change, too. than their usual “Nana-tuck-
across her stomach and then been married to Joe Biden. to their daughter, Ashley, Jill Biden defended him. et,” as her grandchildren have
marched through a strategy Plus, she had a bird’s-eye in 1981. She refers to all of “I think what you don’t re- called the Massachusetts is-
session in which advisers view of what a first lady does them as her children. alize is how many people land where the Bidens started
were trying to talk her hus- during Obama’s two terms. As Joe Biden commuted approach Joe — men and going early in their marriage
band into challenging Re- But the scrutiny level will from Delaware to Washing- women, looking for comfort to establish a new holiday tra-
publican President George change. And all eyes are on ton while serving as a sena- or empathy,” she told ABC’s dition.
W. Bush. the incoming Biden admin- tor, Jill Biden built a career ”Good Morning America.” In 2020, instead of the usual
Protecting Joe stands out istration to deliver what both as a teacher, ultimately earn- “But going forward, I think sprawling family tableau,
among Jill Biden’s many Joe and Jill have promised ing two master’s degrees and he’s gonna have to judge — their daughter and her hus-
roles over their 43-year mar- — getting the coronavirus then a doctorate in education be a better judge — of when band were the only Biden
riage, as her husband’s career pandemic raging across the from the University of Dela- people approach him, how visitors to the house in Dela-
moved him from the Senate country under control. ware in 2007. he’s going to react. That he ware. A Zoom call with the
to the presidential campaign Myra Gutin, a professor at Throughout, Jill Biden’s maybe shouldn’t approach larger group was on the eve-
trail and the White House as Rider University and the au- protective streak was notable. them.” ning’s agenda.
President Barack Obama’s thor of several books about There she stood at his side, She recalled a time in her life Look, too, for Jill Biden to try
vice president. She’s a wife, first ladies, recalled Barbara when Joe Biden withdrew when she had been treated to keep things light.
mother, grandmother and Bush telling her: “You know, from his first presidential bid inappropriately and didn’t “She’s not your average
educator with a doctoral de- when I was second lady, I under accusations of plagia- speak up. grandmother,” granddaugh-
gree — as well as a noted could say anything I wanted, rism. She says she emulated “I can remember specifically ter Naomi said on a video
prankster. and no one really paid much her mother’s stoic style. Jill — it was in a job interview,” shown at the Democratic
Now, with her husband on attention. But the minute I Biden’s mother, she said, Jill Biden said. “If that same National Convention, recall-
the brink of becoming the became first lady, everything didn’t even cry when her thing happened today, I’d ing that Jill Biden once woke
46th president, Jill Biden is became newsworthy.” own parents died. She saw turn around and say, ‘What her up at 5 a.m. on Christmas
about to become first lady Still, Jill Biden won’t have that as strength. “I decided do you think you’re doin’?” morning to go “soul cycling.”
and put her own stamp on a the learning curve most other early that I would never let She’s quick to rally to her “She’s a prankster, she’s very
position that traditionally is new first ladies faced. “She’s my emotions rule me,” she husband’s side, sometimes mischievous,” Naomi added
viewed as a model of Ameri- been in the public eye for a wrote in her memoir, ”Where physically. with a grin. “When she goes
can womanhood — whether long time,” Gutin said. “She’s the Light Enters.” In New Hampshire in Febru- on a run, sometimes she’ll
that means hewing to old going in eyes wide open.” “As a political spouse, I’ve ary, a man tried to cross into find, like, a dead snake and
ways or finding new, activist The coronavirus has killed found that my stoicism often the roped-off area near Joe she’ll pick it up and put it in a
ones, in the manner of Elea- more than 260,000 Ameri- serves me well,” Jill Biden Biden. In a flash, Jill Biden bag and use it to scare some-
nor Roosevelt, Hillary Clin- cans and upended much of wrote. “In 1988, when Joe’s crossed behind her husband one.”