Why Jill Biden was 'overwhelmed' when her husband left 2024 race
Consider This from NPR
NPR
4.2 • 6.2K Ratings
🗓️ 4 June 2026
⏱️ 14 minutes
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Summary
And this month, for the first time, we’re hearing about that period of time from the person closest to the former president: his wife, Jill Biden.
In this episode, the former first lady discusses her view on her husband’s fitness for office during the campaign, and other moments and lessons described in her new memoir, “View From the East Wing.”
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This episode was produced by Tyler Bartlam, with audio engineering by Cena Loffredo.
It was edited by Ashley Brown.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's considered this where every day we go deep on one big news story. |
| 0:04.0 | Today, a brand new perspective on what essentially marked the beginning of the end of Joe Biden's presidency, |
| 0:09.7 | when he stepped onto the debate stage in June 2024. |
| 0:13.3 | Dealing with everything we have to do with, look, if we finally beat Medicare. |
| 0:22.7 | The fallout from Biden's debate performance was swift. |
| 0:25.8 | Democratic lawmakers and voters quickly called for him to drop out of the race and questioned |
| 0:30.6 | his ability to lead the country. |
| 0:32.8 | Several weeks later, Biden made an unprecedented decision. |
| 0:36.0 | President Joe Biden said today that he's dropping out of the |
| 0:38.4 | 2024 presidential race. Now, former first lady Jill Biden is telling her side of the story. What she says |
| 0:45.0 | she saw and knew about her husband's health and what others were telling her at the time. |
| 0:49.6 | No one came to me and said, Jill, I have seen this moment at, you know, blankety blank. No one came to me and said, Jill, I have seen this moment at, you know, blankety blank. |
| 0:57.5 | No one came to me and said that. |
| 1:00.6 | Consider this. |
| 1:01.4 | Plenty of people in and around the Biden administration have given their take on what went wrong with his campaign. |
| 1:07.6 | Now we're hearing about it from the person closest to him. |
| 1:12.7 | From NPR, I'm Scott Detrow. |
| 1:18.8 | It's consider this from NPR. Jill Biden's new memoir out this week is called View from the East Wing. |
| 1:30.8 | A lot of it details her life as First Lady, memories of living in the White House, going on state visits. |
| 1:35.8 | But she also goes into detail about why she never doubted her husband's fitness to serve as president for a second term, even after that disastrous debate performance. |
| 1:45.6 | And that's where our conversation started. |
| 1:47.8 | I don't want to curse in front of a former first lady, and I definitely don't want to curse in |
... |
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