Washington: US First lady Jill Biden has expressed concern over the stalled progress of her husband and President Joe Biden’s tenure in the White House.
CNN quoted Jill as saying on Saturday that her husband has been consistently challenged by unanticipated crises while in office, placing blame on global woes.
Speaking during a private Democratic National Committee fundraiser in Nantucket, Massachusetts, she said, “(The President) had so many hopes and plans for things he wanted to do, but every time you turned around, he had to address the problems of the moment.
“He’s just had so many things thrown his way. Who would have ever thought about what happened (with the Supreme Court overturning) Roe v Wade? Well, maybe we saw it coming, but still, we didn’t believe it. The gun violence in this country is absolutely appalling. We didn’t see the war in Ukraine coming.”
According to CNN, her remarks came as the President’s job approval rating stands at 33 percent according to a recent New York Times and Siena College poll, which also noted just 13 percent of Americans say the country is heading in the right direction.
She also announced that she will likely meet Olena Zelenska, the first lady of Ukraine, next week.
CNN quoted her saying that she also felt hamstrung in her role as the first lady, and had been unexpectedly pulled in other directions from the course she initially intended.
She said, “I was saying to myself, ‘Okay, I was the second lady. I worked in community colleges. I worked on military families. I’ve worked on cancer.’ They were supposed to be my areas of focus. But then when we got (in the White House,) I had to be, with all that was happening, the first lady of the moment.”
Sharing her frustration over ending the federal constitutional right to an abortion, the First Lady said that she supported the right to protest but being angry about the decision will not be enough.
She said, “So many young girls, my own grandchildren included, went up to the Supreme Court and marched. I say, ‘Okay, good for you. But what are you going to do next? You feel good about yourself because you voiced your opinion but what are you going to do next? What is your plan?'”
However, the President last week encouraged women to “keep protesting” as it was “critically important.”
