First lady Jill Biden says her husband’s election serves as a form of stress relief for Americans who felt suffocated under former President Donald Trump.
The Democrat made the comments in a Vogue magazine profile titled, “A First Lady for All of Us: On the Road with Dr. Jill Biden.”
“During the campaign, I felt so much anxiety from people; they were scared,” Mrs. Biden told writer Jonathan Van Meter. “When I travel around the country now, I feel as though people can breathe again. I think that’s part of the reason Joe was elected.”
The first lady then put forth the theory that Mr. Biden’s supporters wanted a commander in chief who “lowers the temperature.”
“People wanted someone to come in and heal this nation, not just from the pandemic, which I feel Joe did by, you know, getting shots in everybody’s arms. But also … he’s just a calmer president,” she said.
Not mentioned by Mrs. Biden was the role of her husband’s predecessor in getting vaccines research and development fast-tracked via Operation Warp Speed at the start of the COVID-19 global pandemic.
Dr. Moncef Slaoui, an Operation Warp Speed health adviser, said in March that roughly 90% of the Biden administration’s plans for federal actions related to the vaccine were taken from Mr. Trump’s logistical blueprints.
“The first thing [Mr. Trump’s teams did] was to accelerate the development of the vaccine,” Dr. Slaoui said during a CBS “Face the Nation” interview. “We contracted, specifically, 100 million doses of the vaccine, but built into the contracts options to acquire more vaccines once we knew they were effective. So, I think what is happening now is right, but I think what is happening was — substantially was the plan.”
Mr. Biden, to some degree, concurred.
“I think the administration deserves some credit getting this off the ground with Operation Warp Speed,” he said in late December in conjunction with his own inoculation.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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