OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
A new book has made another shocking claim about now-First Lady Jill Biden from the days when her husband, then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), was hospitalized for a serious medical condition.
The book says that Jill became a “full-fledged” member of the Biden family ten years after she married Joe when he was hospitalized in 1988 after suffering two brain aneurysms, and she demanded full control over his care.
According to New York Times White House correspondent Katie Rogers, Joe Biden was recovering at Walter Reed Military Medical Center when Jill Biden was the sole decision-maker regarding his care.
In “American Woman: The Transformation of the Modern First Lady, from Hillary Clinton to Jill Biden,” Rogers wrote that Jill made it very clear she was establishing herself as someone to be reckoned with in the Biden clan.
“She was exhausted. In the hospital, as she watched Joe’s mother, sister, and brothers debate the best path forward for Joe’s treatment, something in her broke,” Rogers wrote, according to an excerpt obtained by Fox News.
“‘Wait a minute!’ she yelled at the group. ‘He’s my husband. I should be making the decision here.’”
The future first lady “became a full-fledged Biden” as a result of that incident, which Joe’s mother reinforced by pleading with the family to listen to Jill.
“The Bidens were stunned until Joe’s mother eventually agreed: ‘She’s right,’ Jean Biden told the group, settling the matter. That was the moment, as Jill has recounted, that she felt she had become a full-fledged Biden.”
Fox News reported that the book will be released on Tuesday. It details how a first lady’s role has evolved during the 21st century.
Fox added:
Joe and Jill Biden married in 1977, following the deaths of the future president’s first wife and their young daughter in a car accident in 1972. Biden had two other children with his first wife, Beau, and Hunter, who Jill Biden later raised alongside their younger half-sister, Ashley Biden.
As a Delaware senator, Biden had two life-threatening brain aneurysms, and doctors said he had a 50-50 shot of surviving.
“If he did survive, there was a chance that the part of his brain that governed his speech would be damaged,” Rogers wrote.
“For Jill, the diagnosis was the latest setback after a stressful year. She had spent months campaigning on his behalf, despite her discomfort with public speaking. She was raising their three children, Beau, Hunter, and Ashley, who were all in different stages of adjusting to school and life in Delaware,” Rogers documented.
The surgeries on Joe Biden were successful, Fox News noted, adding that he did not suffer any long-term damage from the aneurysms.
After Jill established herself as a force to be dealt with, she went on to become the “powerful guardian of the Biden inner circle,” Rogers wrote.
“As the president and his last surviving son, Hunter, have become targets for conservatives in a rapidly toxifying political landscape, Jill has emerged as the powerful guardian of the Biden inner circle, defining herself as a ‘Philly girl’ who is not to be crossed,” the book says.
Rogers also writes that Jill is the driving force behind Joe’s reelection campaign, which she says is driven by a “dislike for Trump.”
“Her dislike for Trump was a driving reason behind her support for Joe’s campaign for the presidency, and it remains so for his reelection effort, even if that means he will not leave office until age eighty-six at the end of a second term,” the book says.
However, Douglas Brinkley, author of “The Unfinished Presidency,” told CBS News’ “Face The Nation” earlier this month that Jill has done the exact opposite of what other first ladies have done when their president husbands have suffered physical decline during their first term.
“That’s not the case with Jill Biden. She likes power. She wants to stay. She wants some sense of revenge,” he said.
