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Hi, I'm Tara Palmieri. I'm Puck's senior political correspondent, and this is Somebody's Gotta Win. On this episode, we're going to talk about first ladies. Please do not tune out. This is not about flower arrangements or the menus at the state dinners or any other soft powers that first ladies tend to hold.
The reality is they probably hold more power and influence over the president than anyone in the West Wing. They are the keepers of the secrets. They are the biggest defenders of the president. And they are the ones who check the temperature, tell them when to push back.
They've also changed over time, just like modern women. So today I'm talking to New York Times White House correspondent Katie Rogers, who has a new book out called American Woman, the Transformation of the Modern First Lady from Hillary Clinton to Jill Biden. Katie covered the Trump administration with me, and now she's still a part of the White House press corps covering the Biden administration. So she and I will spill all the tea on what it was like to cover the Trump and Biden administrations through the eyes of the first ladies.
Katie, thanks so much for joining the show. I really enjoyed your book. It's super well written. It's deeply sourced. Reporting's excellent. But it felt like a bunch of mini biographies of first ladies all threaded together. But the one common theme among the first ladies, the modern first ladies that you profiled from Hillary Clinton to Dr. Jill Biden is that they were all
kind of reluctant to be the first lady. You know, Michelle Obama wanted to stay in Chicago and stay working at this hospital as an executive there. Melania obviously took a lot of time. She wanted Barron to stay in school, and then she kind of reluctantly moved to Washington. Dr. Jill Biden decided she wanted to keep working. If anyone, maybe the least reluctant was probably Hillary Clinton, but she was probably already charting her own political future at the time. Based on this whole reluctance, like you've got Jill Biden...
who may return for a second term. And you've got Melania Trump,
Do you think Melania Trump actually wants Trump to run again? I can't answer that question directly, but I can say that she wouldn't mind being first lady again. You know, I think that she also believes that her husband could win. So taken together, you know, I think that she is supportive of what he's doing because she does share his
grievances about the direction the country is going in. She shares his grievances about how he feels he's been treated and covered. First ladies, as I learned in this, doing this project is that they really channel and mirror their husbands and how they feel in ways that are pretty surprising. I think that there was sort of a
I guess I kind of call it a liberal fever dream in the first year of the Trump administration. Yeah, the myth that she was a part of the resistance. Yes, exactly. They hope that she was like a mediating force, like she would be the person in the White House being like, you know, honey, don't tweet that. And she actually did tell me on one trip to Africa that she does take his phone away sometimes. But it was...
It was as common for her to suggest he'd punch back if she felt that her husband was being attacked. She would often be a voice for fighting back. There was like a sense, though, that she was just so displeased with the fact that he was in the White House and that she would have preferred to be in Manhattan or Mar-a-Lago shopping, spa, you know, be with her friends, her family. There was just a sense that Melania was just like, just
just not happy to be there at any time when she swatted his hands away on foreign trips. And I read in your book something that I didn't know, even though I covered the Trump administration as well, is that she only went to the East Wing twice the entire time she was there. That is what, according to several people who worked for her, they could only remember
two times that she ever went there in an official capacity or otherwise she used it so seldomly that they turned her office into a gift wrapping room like
like Aaron Spelany's wife did in the 90s in their mansion in California. That's like my equivalent. That was like a huge story, like some weird pop culture thing. And she just like walked around the residency in her robe all day during COVID. The details in your book are so amazing. Like I felt like I was, even though I covered the Trump administration, I felt like I was in the residency reading it. It was so interesting. Nice. And I'm glad you felt that way. But yeah, people told me, you know, Stephanie Grisham, who's a former...
You know who she is. She was a former press secretary and a former, you know, top aide to Melania Trump. And she just said, I got my love of robes from Melania because she was constantly wearing them more and more. These plush terrycloth hotel robes. And to your point about not wanting to be in the White House,
That is something that is, it's a really isolating existence. That's another thing I learned for all these women, you know, like you can't open the door or the window to the outside without the secret service clearing the park below. So all of them, like really like Michelle Obama found respite at Camp David or on trips with her friends. Jill Biden really likes her Hobith or Wilmington. Melania loves Palm Beach. She was a daily,
is a daily spa goer there. There's just less room. I love that. The dream to be able to go to the spa every day. One thing though, I've been reporting on the Trump campaign and the revival, right? Like who's coming back into the campaign? Who's coming back into the administration? This is for Puck and my newsletter, The Best and the Brightest. And last week I reported that Melania feels very isolated right now. She feels exposed. She feels like there's no one to protect her on the campaign. I mean, she lost Stephanie Grisham, who's
you know, cut ties with the White House. She wrote a book. She doesn't have Stephanie Winston, a former aide as well. It just feels like she has nobody. And so she really wants Kellyanne Conway to come back into the fold.
And my reporting said it's not just because she feels like she's not being protected, but it's also because she wants to keep Ivanka and Jared at a distance. And Kellyanne and Jared just don't get along. And it's just so interesting to me how much pull Melania has and how actually Trumpy she is and MAGA she really is deep down. The other thing that you point that in your reporting on Kellyanne, which, you know, sounds from everything I know about reporting on the Trump White House is that Kellyanne was a huge,
defender of her, pulled her into, you know, initiatives that were policy focused a lot, you know, with Be Best, they visited, you know, facilities where children had been born with opioid addiction, and that Kelly M was a huge sort of supporter of pushing Melania into like, policy initiatives. So like, to your point, Melania does not have anybody who would be
in the West Wing looking out and sort of being the eyes for her either. I mean, if the Trumps did win again, like there is nobody who could sort of be that conduit. And there is, as I reported in my book, and as you know from your reporting, you know, there's a rivalry and an interest on Melania's part in sort of containing Trump
the Jared and Ivanka factor. She would refer to Ivanka as the princess. Yeah, so often that her aides would also call Ivanka that. And she was terrified when Ivanka started eyeing the East Wing as possible office space. That was the thing that really made her want to move from Manhattan and stake her place as the first lady in the White House. It's just, it's amazing to me.
But yeah, I just don't understand why she didn't show up on Super Tuesday. I mean, I was told that it was, again, she's unhappy and that's why she didn't show up. I don't know if you have any fresh reporting on that, why she didn't go out with Trump on his big win in Mar-a-Lago. I mean, I really don't have any new reporting into that other than she is not somebody who ever liked the campaigning part of it. You know, she was pulled out
you know, after the Access Hollywood stuff in 2016 and did a few women-focused events in swing states. I think she went to like Pennsylvania and did sort of like
meetings with women voters. But like, I, my impression is that it's going to be a very high bar to, you know, get her out on the trail and not even becoming the nominee officially. I mean, I think it goes back to your very good reporting that, you know, unless she has a powerful ally in that, in that world, it might be hard to
you know, get her out there. Totally. Now back to Jill Biden. You write that she feared back all the way back in 1988 when Biden lost the presidential primary that he would keep trying to run for president indefinitely. Crazy that she kind of had that insight. I know. And I think that was one of the main questions I had about her when I started this book. It's just like,
who is the person who stands by somebody when they try to run for the presidency over a span of decades and decades and decades. And, you know, I guess I had said earlier, and I think it's really true with her as well as other from the predecessors, like she is,
competitive like her husband is, but also if you tell the Bidens no, and they're not ready, or they're not good enough, or Joe Biden isn't smart enough, or he had no political future after that, the instinct is to dig in. And that is something after the 88 campaign, through this, when Biden sort of scuttled the Bork nomination for the Supreme Court, that is really the birth of Jill Biden as
a political spouse who really channeled her husband's anger over what happened in 88 and this sort of chip on his shoulder that, you know, he, he had missed his time then and people were underestimating him. And I, and I really do feel like one of the keys to understanding the president and the Bidens, both of them is, is this sort of feeling that they've been underestimated and that, that is,
traces from 88 all the way to like deciding to run again now. So there's a chip on her shoulder, just like him. She shares that and she really hates Trump too, right? I mean, that's a big part of it as well. You know, first ladies are kind of the grudge holders for their families. And she is sort of a more, a very, not an extreme version of that, but maybe a more fully realized version of that. And
Donald Trump attacked her family, her husband, her surviving son, Hunter. So all of that, in addition to just being super competitive, there is just very personal bad blood over where is Hunter, suggesting that her
her husband is mentally unfit to serve. That is a real deep dislike of him. And you have seen it really recently, you know, out on the trail with her. Do you think she wants to see Joe Biden run again, though? Like if Trump wasn't in the equation, would she want him to run for a second term? That's a really good question. The last conversation I had with her about this was that she talks about watching him as vice president and knowing how hard he was working as vice president.
And she said, you know, it's all that. Plus he goes up on the elevator at night as president. He's got all these briefing books and she goes like this, you know, this is all the work he takes with him every night. Basically to say this is a wear and tear on him. This is a lot. He works really hard at this. But the subtext of that was, you know, Trump was this looming specter and, you
She said it would have made her work two times harder if Trump became the nominee to make sure he didn't win. If Trump wasn't in the picture, she's the person who worries the most about the wear and tear of this job on him. Right. I don't know the direct answer to that, but.
you know, she does see what this takes out of him. I mean, these are arguably, it would be the last years of his life, last decades at least, right? So... And she really liked, as she told me, she really liked that period. She called it the... You know, we were done, you know, with public life. And then she was just like, how would you feel if you could never drive a car again? You know, she...
was finally getting some literal breathing room and, you know, decided he decided he wanted to run and she believes he can win, which is also the common thread of all these women as different as they are. Like the reason they are in a role that a lot of them really didn't enjoy is they believed their husband was the right one for the job. Also, they put in so much sweat equity. I'm sure by the time they get to the White House, they're sort of like, okay, I've got to like,
I gotta go to the next step. You know, we gotta make this happen. I wanted to ask you about the grudges that you mentioned. Jill holding grudges. Okay, obviously she would hold a grudge against Donald Trump. What he said about the family was like, you know, horrendous. But what about just about the people around her? I mean, obviously it's been reported pretty widely that she cursed out Kamala Harris. The go after yourself phone call after the debate. Right. Yeah. When she essentially accused
Joe Biden ended up being a segregationist, but like, did she still hold that grudge against Kamala? What's the relationship like there? So I, they would say, and they have said when this got reported out from the book that somebody had told like Politico, they were like, shit happens during a campaign. This is old news. Right. The funny part is though, is that my book has a scene from the presidency about, you know, Jill Biden had gone to this fundraiser in San Francisco and she,
Mid-2022 and the people who were hosting it and guests kept coming up to her saying,
you know, Harris is from there. And so they were like, we hope she's doing it proud. We're so proud of her. And she said nothing. This is a person who has been campaigning for decades and knows how to just grip and grin, just like her husband. And she said nothing. And she pivots and goes, well, how about Katonji talking about Katonji Brown Jackson, her husband's Supreme court nominee. So nothing to say about Kamala, just like completely changed the subjects. Exactly. So,
they might not say the grudge exists, but she has not, she did not go out of her way in the vice president's, you know, hometown basically to be like, well, she's doing a great job. We love her, you know? So, um, she is somebody who, if she, you know, if you cross,
cross that line of loyalty, it's just really hard to get it back. Right. She wanted Susan Rice to be the vice president, right? That Jill was gunning for. Yes. But it was Ron Klain who sort of overruled Jill. What was their relationship like? Ron Klain was the first chief of staff of Joe Biden. Right. So he had decamped, you know, when Hillary Clinton ran for the presidency and Biden had essentially been
told, you know, the Bidens have, they say that it was Bill Biden's death in 2015. That's a huge reason Joe Biden didn't, didn't run. And that is a factor, but Biden was actually also, it was suggested to him that it just wasn't his time. It was Hillary's time. He didn't, yes. And he didn't run. And then Ron claimed he can't work for the Clinton campaign. And that is something that, um, again, to the, to the loyalty, um,
you know, the quotient that, that line was sort of crossed. And, um, I had just picked up for the book that she had to sort of be set, sat down and told, this is the best choice to bring him in. This is, this is what we're doing. And, you know, to her, to her credit, people had said this took a lot of diplomacy, but it's not like she would have put her foot down and said,
No, no, no. In the end, she was convinced that he was the best person for the job, just like she was convinced that Harris was too. So when it comes to, can these people help us win? They don't mind overlooking those past indiscretions.
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One thing I wanted to ask you about, because we both covered the Trump administration, but I do cover the Biden administration, but not like you do as a part of the press corps. What's it like? Like, can you tell me the similarities, the differences between covering the Trump administration and covering the Biden administration?
I can give you my initial impressions and you can tell me if I'm right or wrong. So my initial impression of the Trump administration was like, it was very easy to cover it. People were leaking all the time. It was part of the backstabbing. Trump was calling his friends. They were leaking. It was just a mess, chaotic. There was an endless amount of stories. It was just kind of like chaos. And yeah, but Trump was also doing interviews every single day. Every time he went from
His office, the Oval Office to Marine won. He did press conferences, essentially. So like, even if you had a scoop, it was lost in the middle of the day. But with the Biden White House, they seem extremely disciplined, but also so meticulous. And they tone police and they're borderline.
obsessive over reporting and they can be very rough with the press. And that's just been my initial experience with them doing reporting. But I'm not there day to day in the briefing room the way that you are. You're free to have whatever your answer is. But I just wanted to share what my experience has been like. I don't know if that's what yours has been. I guess I agree with you largely because I remember...
during the Trump era, I guess, so to speak, we can write stories and never hear anything. I remember one time. You never hear from them. One time. Even now. I know. A senior spokesman, I was like, did you have any reaction to the story? He's like, I don't have a time subscription. I can't log in and see it. This is like a Trump. Oh,
A White House agent not have a Times subscription. Yeah. Remember? Because Trump took all the newspapers out of the White House at one point, too. So like at one point, like the press shop didn't even see what we were reporting on. So in that sense, you know, the Biden White House is totally different. I was I was interested in covering a quote unquote normal White House after Trump. This is only my second one. And, you know, I don't.
I don't know that any white house is normal and I don't think this one is either. So we went from, you know, AIDS who didn't even log in to read our stories to, um, AIDS who have a lot of thoughts on everything from the headline to an adjective in paragraph 19. So there, it's just very rare that you don't hear, uh, something about something that they thought came off wrong or, uh,
seemed like an overreach. So there's, it's, there's a lot of line editing attempts that go on. I've personally gotten some nasty emails too from the Biden administration. Really? Yeah. But the funny thing about the Trump administration is somebody like Spicer will try to like publicly humiliate you. Do you know what I mean? Like how he tried to publicly humiliate me.
because it's all for show. It's performance for their boss. But in the Biden administration, like the kind of the nastiness happens behind the scenes because that's not his persona, right? Right. Yeah. Particularly toxic run. Yeah. With, with running with, um,
One of them, haven't you on the Biden team? But yeah, they can be very aggressive. I haven't had an experience like that with them. But I think, you know, that every White House is a reflection of the person at the top. And if the president is angry about his coverage, which he is, if he's an obsessive over headlines, which he is, then the aides underneath him
are as worried about those same things because they are the ones that have to deal with the blowback all the way up the chain. So it's a very tightly wound operation and there's a lot of anger and I think distrust toward the press. And even if you feel like you have a good relationship
with people inside and you feel as though you are doing things by the book and fairly, you know, one word choice can sort of
you know, in that relationship. Question though, who gave you more access, the Jill Biden camp or whatever's left of the Melania team? I think because I was doing this project and I came in at the very beginning of the administration saying I was going to do this. There was an aide, Michael LaRosa, who worked for Jill Biden for a while, who was sort of my point person. We've had him on the show a few times. Yeah, he's great. And, you know, I think that he was an advocate for opening up a relationship with the press, getting to know reporters.
laying the groundwork for me to sort of come in with this project. So I had access because I spent a lot of time trying to build those relationships and I hadn't covered her before. I think with Melania Trump, at the beginning, there were attempts to get to know the reporters who cover her. And I think she just really felt like we couldn't be trusted because the reporting about her husband was just
It was aggressively done and it was, there was a lot to cover as you know. So I think she didn't really see any upside in trying to engage. Not even with like a Fox News or a Wall Street Journal or some sort of right-leaning reporter. She didn't have a favorite or anything? I can't think of one. Can you? No, they weren't very strategic about leaks either, to be honest. Yeah, I know. I mean, it is interesting that she didn't have like a safe
space to go to. Like the Biden White House, they always go to like people or like- They love people. They even tried to use it as cleanup on the, you know, interaction I had with them. Oh, that's right. That's right. Yeah. So they go to sort of like what they, I think, view as friendly outlets. And I can't really recall-
Yeah. Melania Trump ever really doing that? I mean, maybe they just yeah, they weren't very savvy about that. But I think, you know, to answer your question, I think that at the beginning, the White House was easier, you know, to sort of develop relationships, you know, with the East Wing than with the with the Trump White House. OK, but Katie, you broke one of the biggest stories of the Biden White House.
And to me, the Biden administration, they've passed massive pieces of legislation. He's been able to execute policy that Democratic presidents can only dream of, right? But the one story that really sticks out and the story really of his administration has been his family, whether it's, and it's really about Hunter. And it's, I mean,
I mean, the right-wing media probably and, you know, obviously the Republicans in the House, they've really pushed that story along and made it front and center. Trump did during his campaign. They knew it was a liability, his family. But you actually identified Joe Biden's seventh grandchild who lives in Arkansas.
And the family really just hadn't acknowledged this child. Her first name is Navy, but I'm blanking on the second name. What is it? She's not taking the name Biden. Navy Joan Roberts is her name. Yes, Navy Joan Roberts. And she is the daughter of Hunter and a woman that Hunter can't remember how he met her. So...
You say like in the White House, there were stockings for the six grandchildren and they would refer to the fact that Joe Biden has six grandchildren for a very long time. And you went down to Arkansas, you were reluctant. You felt like it was a right wing kind of hit job. But then when you got there, you kind of got a different feel like you saw this, right? Is that fair to say that you had a different experience when you actually met the family? Well, I didn't want to do a story and I just...
couldn't wrap my head around it until I sort of thought about it as this is about two families and one of them is super powerful and the other isn't. And once I could sort of approach the story that way, I just viewed them as both families, you know? Um, and so the more contact I made with, um,
London Roberts is her name, is the mother of Navy. And I actually didn't hear from her until right before the story ran. And I was shocked to hear from her. She called you from a private number, right? And like spoke kind of cryptically, right? Was that right? Yeah, it was just, it was a very syrupy voice. And I was just like, this isn't, she sounded pretty, actually pretty assured of herself. And, you know, they had just settled this,
child support case. And I think she just wanted her own version of the story out there because she
could detect that, you know, the other side, so to speak, where they were trying to make her sound like she had sort of printed away child support money and was being irresponsible. So that's what got her to call as, as you know, that'll get people to call. But anyway, the more contact I made with that family, the more I realized how much this little girl was loved and
supported. And the grandpa told me at one point, you know, I might not be the POTUS, but I'll take a bullet for her. And I just felt like that's a story that's worth telling, you know, where there's this family down in Arkansas that they're really circling around this little girl and,
you know, the girl's mom really wanted it known that, you know, I'm not taking her to Washington to parade her around in front of the Memorial or the white house. She knows who her grandpa is and she knows who her dad is and not everybody can say that. So she, you know, it really kind of, you know, it was, it was a really sensitive story because, you know, you have this little kid who knows exactly who she is and,
you know, a mom who wants to nurture that and a father who is, you know, distrustful of that. And, you know, I think that what came out of it was the Bidens acknowledging their granddaughter and saying, we've got seven now. And that's what they say now. They don't do stockings anymore, I don't think. But there is a, it didn't happen overnight. And actually, I will say that was like,
One of the gripping parts of the story, like when the grandfather was saying, I'm going to teach her how to shoot alligators. We're not going to give her the Biden name, but she knows who her blood is. It was really kind of touching. You could just feel the difference from like the way you describe where they lived. It just, like you said, these two different families, a political power difference.
family, a dynasty really in some way. Well, not really a dynasty, but maybe if, if Bo had survived. They see themselves as one. Yeah, they do. They definitely see themselves. And, and, and what's interesting, you know, the interior of the Roberts family is warm and, and loving. And it's interesting for Joe Biden, who has been in public life for 50 years and he has made his family, as you say, like a focal point of his life and how much he, blood matters to him and Biden blood matters to him. And this story really hit,
at that tension. I think really that if you are who you say you are and who you've been telling the public you are, you know, that is something that seemed to really bother people that he couldn't acknowledge this little girl. And, you know, weeks later, uh, you know, Maureen Dowd wrote a column basically directly telling him to do so. And they acknowledged it in people. Yes, they did in a statement and paper didn't people magazine. Yeah. Good old people magazine. Yeah.
Yeah, no, I thought that was, it was a really, really, really, really well-reported story. And Maureen's column was searing because she's known Joe Biden for so long, right? She's the columnist who can get him on the line and talk to him probably a lot off the record. And so for her to be like, you have seven grandchildren, Mr. President, you don't get to pick, right? It was a moment in the middle of the summer, basically only a new cycle. And the fact that it took 20 days, I think is...
for them to acknowledge this seventh grandchild? I just think they realized it wasn't going anywhere and they knew that they had to deal with it would be my guess. Now, here's my question. Had you already interviewed Jill Biden at this point? Because I would think this might cut off access. Yeah. Are you worried about it? No. I mean, I had interviewed her, I think about, and I think I'd
talked to her in the fall of 2022 for the book for the last time um and I was assigned the story the next summer I know that they were and probably are not very happy about it and they're not gonna do me any favors but they didn't in the first plate like they weren't coming to the times with
with big, you know, reveals or anything like that. I guess I was, it's something that I thought about, but it was also just, I don't know, would you, would you, I, I wouldn't not write a story if I, if I was scared about,
at people in power talking to me again. The whole point of us is to sort of- Right. And also you're well-sourced enough. The reason I asked too is that like you were working as a White House correspondent day to day. Yeah. Yeah. I mean- But that story is explosive enough that you go forward. You know what I mean? Like there's no reason not to. Yeah. I think it's just one foot in front of the other. It was an awkward couple of weeks after and it
But I think it was fairly done. And I feel like, you know, it's not something that I could really...
Access is not something that I could ever really lose sleep over. You just have to keep going. Good reporters don't worry about it. But if you're in the middle of a book and you're trying to get talked to the first lady, I hate to say this, but the Biden family just feels really dysfunctional in some ways. And I know they've been through a lot of trauma. A lot of families are dysfunctional. Just that it's the first family. So when that kind of plays out,
you know, you see it. I mean, every, every first family definitely has elements of dysfunction. There are always sort of wayward siblings or uncles or cousins out there either trying to make money off the family or have substance issues. You know, one of the more relatable things about them. And I think, you know, it's interesting to me that they don't talk about it more is how much addiction and substance abuse sort of has defined their
their family. And, you know, I guess there is a lot of dysfunction, but I think who among us doesn't have an awkward Thanksgiving every now and then. But, yeah. But then it all played out when Hunter's laptop came out. Yeah. Well, nobody has that. Nobody has a hard drive.
But yeah, I mean, that is, that's totally awkward. And, you know, there were for a while, it was just every day. It was another, you know, story about what he had said to or about his parents or, you know, yeah, it's pretty, it's awkward and, and, you know, dysfunctional that
as you say. But as you also write, Jill Biden has really made a point of making sure that Hunter feels like he's a part of the family because she thinks it's important for his recovery. Yeah. But he feels like he's always invited to the White House. He's invited to the state dinners. He's aboard Marine One. He's not made to feel like he's a pariah in the family. Yeah. She's never going to be the one to cut him off or out. I don't ever think... I mean, it's just not her
place in that family. She was, she married his dad when he was super young. And, you know, as I, as I cover in the book, like it was her role to adjust these boys to life, you know, after losing their mom and their sister. And,
She's extremely protective over him. And he had some messages in the laptop that, you know, call her names and disparage her and just pretty, some pretty nasty things. But, you know, through it all, you know, she told me she reaches out to him a lot and worries about him. She's his mom. You know, I think that that's a relationship where even at times if it's felt one way of her letting
loving him and he's troubled and off to the side. I think she's never, and I've never detected anything but real loyalty to him. I remember she was trying to go to his art gallery in New York, I think in 2021, just do like an off the record stop, see his paintings and
they canceled it because reporters found out, but she always wants to support him. And even the art is controversial. I know. Like it's, that's like a defiant, it's like, it's a defiant act in a way, right? Like she's just going to say, screw it and go see his artwork. When, you know, the briefings every day at the White House are asking like, how are you really going to cover up
the buyers of these paintings and keep this separate. Like there was just no way to explain like the press secretary was just getting pulted with that every day. And it's very, it's like a very Biden thing to double down in the face of criticism like that and just be like, we're going to the gallery. One last thing I think,
It's interesting that I don't know that a lot of people realize it. The whole Biden family has sort of revolved around Joe, though, running for office their whole lives. They've worked in public service or they've worked as lobbyists. Do you know what I mean? Like his brother, his son, the other son was more of going down the political path. Oh, yeah.
Hunter's a lobbyist. His brother's a lobbyist. So it's like everything has been sort of rearranged around Joe Biden. Like he is the son of the Biden world and everyone else sort of revolves around him. It's interesting. Yeah. I always think of him as the North Star. I think that was the name of one of his houses at one point. Well, he is truly like everybody orbits around him. And I think to your point about a dynasty, it's like
But Beau was meant to sort of assume that role. Right, right. Yeah. That's why I was like, I stopped myself. I was like, dynasty? Maybe not. That's how they have always talked about their family. I feel like Joe Biden's first wife, you know, right after he won the Senate for the first time, was talking about how the Kennedys couldn't hold a candle to the Bidens. And like, one of the most fascinating things about this family is just
how they see themselves versus how they present themselves and the things they do and the decisions they make. So, I mean, as a reporter, it's sort of an endless, it's hard reporting. It's hard to hold the mirror up to them a little bit, I would think. Yeah. I mean, who is incentivized to talk to you about that, you know, but it's truly, they're a fascinating family because they're
they have had so much time in, in the public eye to sort of define who they are and the presidency. And I think this is why they get so angry with us. It's just, there's so much scrutiny. There's an entire press corps focused on your actions versus your words. And, um, you know, at the end of his life and these, these sort of things are coming up and these tensions are being illustrated and it's uncomfortable, but, um,
his American presidency. That's the Biden story is just sort of the tension between who he sees himself as and how he presents himself. And there's no better way to sort of illustrate who he is than through the first lady. You know, obviously Melania and Jill, we don't know, give or take 60, 40, maybe some people say 50, 50, we'll end up back in the East wing. Yeah. You have kind of described Melania as like a radical among the first ladies in a lot of ways. Yeah.
I see her as one, yeah. What do you think her next term looks like if she ends up back in the White House? I mean, I think she enjoys the title. She liked being first lady. Much like Trump liked being president, but maybe...
liked less policymaking and governing, you know, like they, they like the pomp that comes with that. Um, so I think she would be first lady. I mean, these are conversations that are so crazy to have with people around them, but it's like, would she be the first lady again? And people were like, of course she'd be the first lady again, but that's a valid question. Like, is she just going to opt out? So my reporting says yes, but my reporting also says that
she might not want to live in the White House. Maybe she would find a way to do it where she doesn't have to be here all the time. Well, Barron will be in college, so there's no excuse, right? Exactly. Well, maybe she finds some way to settle Barron into grad school. Well, I think he's just a freshman, but maybe she finds a way to say, I need to be with him in New York, which is a
We need to, I don't know where he's going. I think she was trying to get him into a college in New York last I knew, but convenient. I mean, right. Like you can take mommy to college though. Come on. Well, maybe she'll just need to be close by in case he needs, you know, I don't know what college students. I couldn't get further enough from my family. I got to say, I went to college. Yeah. So maybe she finds a way to be first lady in a way that suits her. Um,
I can imagine that she shows us all again, just exactly where the role is optional and where it's not optional, which actually the whole thing is optional. And that was what was so radical about her is she just sort of exposed all of the elements of this and all of the expectations surrounding first ladies. How our culture has moved forward in so many important ways, talking about women's roles in our place in society. And this role has remained important.
sort of crystallized in amber, you know, we didn't have a, we didn't have a working first lady until Joe Biden. So yeah, I mean, I could see her sort of
redefining it in another way that we can't expect. I mean, if you have a social secretary, you've got a staff like that handling a lot of the customary, like traditional events, etc. You might really not need a first lady. Although I think it's nice to have someone with you for diplomatic purposes, for trying to win over lawmakers. It's kind of the same reason why
a lot of these business leaders bring their spouses with them on work events, but yeah, maybe she'll just split her time. It puts a softer focus on the presidency for sure. I mean, you know, Melania Trump was always super effective sort of in a global setting too. When he would travel abroad, she's European born. So she would,
have a different presence and a different interest in a lot of the cultural events they were doing compared to her husband, certainly a native son of New York who, you know, seems to think it's the center of the world. Would he be wrong though? Well, you get to live there now, not me. So yeah. So yeah. I mean, I feel like she had her strong suit on the world stage and that she was an advantage to have alongside him. So you're right that this role sort of fills that like necessary space.
softer focus on on some of the more blunt force elements of politics so we'll no more be best campaign that's over which was like the best named campaign of all time be best be best i at one point i was just signing off all my emails at be best tara
I still have like Be Best swag in my house. Who came up with Be Best though? Seriously. She did. She did. Oh my God. Of course she did. And she drew the logo herself. She drew the logo herself. Be Best. Yeah. Yeah. It was her. It was her. It was her thing. So I would love it if she brought it back. Oh yeah. We need more Be Best. I think she needs to. Yeah. We need Be Best like stationary, pens.
I don't know. Yeah. Okay. Jill Biden. What's her second term look like? I asked her if she was going to retire and she was almost offended by that. I was like, I'm a working woman. I think she's 77 or something. Oh wait, she's 77, right? No, I think she's 72. No. Okay. Apologies. If you're listening, Dr. Jill Biden, apologies. Someone who works for her definitely is. Yeah. So she wants to keep working. At least she did. Um,
I can see, you know, she's right now she's working on the women's health initiative that the president just signed an executive order on today. So she kind of just picks and chooses her different policy focuses, I suppose. But really, her strength is, as a campaigner, she's hitting the trail. Like she's out there more than any other principal, I think, at this point. And
She is a really popular fundraiser surrogate for him. So if he wins a second term, it will be interesting to see what she does with it when she doesn't have to run on his behalf anymore, campaign on his behalf anymore. Freedom. We should like teach five days a week. Who knows? I think second term first ladies are always super interesting because they don't have that
pressure on them, except for Hillary Clinton. She totally had that pressure on her and she had to sort of pick like women's rights issues versus, you know, the healthcare policy. But anyway,
Anyway, yeah, it'd be interesting to see with either of them what they do. Totally. Might be her YOLO last term. Thanks for coming on the show, Katie. And remember to buy her book, American Woman, The Transformation of the Modern First Lady, from Hillary Clinton to Jill Biden. It's a great read. Editors pick on Amazon right now. And you will sail through it. Beautiful writing, deeply reported and heartfelt. Thanks, Katie. Thank you.
Thanks, Tara. That was another episode of Somebody's Gotta Win. I'm your host, Tara Palmieri. I want to thank my producers, Christopher Sutton and Connor Nevins. If you like this podcast, please rate it, subscribe, share it with your friends. If you like my reporting, please go to puck.news.tara.palmeri and sign up for my newsletter, The Best and the Brightest. You can use the discount code Tara20. I'll be back on Thursday. ♪