How Jill Biden Meghan-Markled A President

If Washington is Hollywood for ugly people — or at least average-looking people with bad haircuts — Jill Biden is Washington’s Meghan Markle.

It’s a tale as old as time: Cinderella becomes accustomed to all the nice things that come with her castle and forces the prince to make a fool of himself on the world stage so she can keep a good thing going.

Like Montecito’s most controversial jam merchant, after a failed first marriage, Jill Jacobs bagged a guy who was well on his way to a life of power and influence. Once she got there, she ate up the magazine covers, the glitzy vacations, and the paparazzi appearances. She started her tenure with general goodwill from most of her royal subjects — people want first ladies and princesses to look pretty, kiss babies, and enjoy their taxpayer-funded lifestyles so long as they don’t appear to enjoy it too much.

But like Meghan, Jill did enjoy it too much, so much that she was willing to ruin her husband and whatever “legacy” he had to keep up the racket. And by the time of her retirement, all she has to show for it is a sub-50 approval rating and a big beach house.

Who knows how long Jill lusted after the White House before she got it. As people who badly want something often do, she went out of her way to look like she didn’t want it — an anecdote in her memoir claims she was so against her husband running for president again in 2003 that she dropped in on a strategy meeting in a bikini to protest.

But by the time she had tasted of the Air Force One rides, the photographers following her around, the fancy clothes, the international trips, the celebrity meet-and-greets, and of course, the Vogue cover shoots, Doctor Jill wasn’t about to give it all up early just because of some gunk buildup in her husband’s brain.

In May 2023, Politico reported that Jill’s “gentle encouragement of her husband’s reelection run comes as she’s relishing her role, hanging out at the Super Bowl and the women’s Final Four, and actively posting on social media” — which is more or less Washington journalist speak for “Jill is having too much fun and her husband knows he better keep the gig or else.”

Months before, NBC News reported that “Whenever his aides are pressed about President Joe Biden’s political future, they’ll often point to [Jill] as the true decider.”

Despite her husband’s frequent and alarming displays of dementia symptoms, Jill publicly patronized and goaded him into keeping up the act.

“Joe, you did such a great job, you answered every question, you knew all the facts,” teacher Jill gushed on live television after Biden’s career-ending debate in June, speaking to the president of the United States as if he was a special ed student.

Just two months before that debate, Jill had sat for an interview and photoshoot with Vogue in preparation for a glowing magazine cover that hadn’t been published yet. The whole interview centered around Jill’s role in her husband’s campaign. How awkward for her if, by the time the article came out, there was no campaign!

On the same day the Vogue cover story was published online, four days after the debate, CNN reported that Biden family members including Jill (and Hunter, who faced the threat of legal accountability for his crimes once his dad was out of power) held a family meeting urging Dementia Joe to stay in the race for another four-year term and suggested firing aides who, presumably, disagreed.

To leave the White House would mean no more lavish gifts from world leaders, like the 7.5-carat diamond Jill received from the prime minister of India. No more Marine Band available to compose and perform Jill Biden’s own personal walkout music, as they were reportedly instructed to do in 2021. No more White House with 28 fireplaces to hang Christmas stockings for all the Biden grandkids except the one they pretend doesn’t exist. And it would mean she could no longer lead Cabinet meetings, like the one Biden turned over to her in September.

Alas for Jill, her efforts didn’t work. In two weeks, she’ll have to give it all up. Like her California counterpart, she’ll transition to a life of lavish exile. Maybe she’ll start her own line of gourmet foods — I hear she has a thing for breakfast tacos.

But for the love of Pete, please nobody give her a Netflix special.

Elle Purnell is the elections editor at The Federalist. Her work has been featured by Fox Business, RealClearPolitics, the Tampa Bay Times, and the Independent Women’s Forum. She received her B.A. in government from Patrick Henry College with a minor in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @_ellepurnell.