When Jill Biden Resented Joe’s Advisers Who Pushed White House Run: “I Had Been So Burned”

Jill Biden, the steadfast partner of President Joe Biden, has long been a pillar of support for her husband. Yet, there was a time when she ferociously opposed the idea of him running for the presidency again. Feeling ‘burned’ by his first campaign in 1987, Jill was deeply skeptical of the advisers urging Joe to mount another run in 2004. Among these advisers were Ron Klain (who later became White House Chief of Staff) and Mark Gitenstein (long-term confidant).

In a candid recounting to Julie Pace and Darlene Superville, co-authors of the biography Jill: A Biography of the First Lady, Jill shared her opinion, “All these men – and they were mostly men – coming to our home. You know, ‘You’ve got to run, you’ve got to run.’ I wanted no part of it. I didn’t even know whether I wanted Joe to ever do it again. I mean, I had been so burned.”

As per The Guardian, the pivotal moment came during a meeting at the Bidens’ Delaware home, more than 15 years after Joe’s initial campaign. Jill recalled, “Some party leaders thought Joe could go head-to-head with [the] president … in the general election. There were always so many people trying to get Joe to run. You’ve got to run again. You’ve got to try again. Always. It was constant. He knew that I wasn’t in favor of his running. Needless to say, they got the message.”

The authors wrote, “Joe and Gitenstein did, at any rate. I don’t understand it. The conversation was going so great and all of a sudden, it just stopped.” Despite Jill’s hesitation, Joe Biden eventually mounted a second presidential run in 2008, with her support, although he withdrew early in the primaries. His political journey continued as Barack Obama’s vice president for eight years, before he ultimately secured the presidency in 2020 at the age of 78.

As per USA Today, in her book (Where the Light Enters: Building a Family, Discovering Myself), talking about her relationship with Joe, she explained, "When I started dating Joe and the boys, and Joe asked me to marry him, I just knew Beau and Hunt had already lost one mother, and I had to make absolutely sure that our marriage would work. I wanted to make sure they wouldn’t lose another mother because our marriage didn’t work. As I said to Joe, I fell in love with the boys, and I like to tease him about that. I spent a lot of time with them, and we were almost like a family already, even before we got married." She also confessed about the difference in their families, "What I said was that Joe’s family was different than my family, that he came from a very affectionate family. My family was very loving, but we didn’t show that kind of affection. So for me, that took me a little while to get used to that."