Former First Lady Jill Biden clapped back at a former staffer who questioned why she dredged up all the Democrats' 2024 drama as the party gears up for the all-important midterms.
Dr Biden returned to Washington, DC, on Wednesday night for an appearance at the Sixth and I synagogue, the second event of her book tour to promote View of the East Wing.
The book was released on Tuesday and included the admission that she thought President Joe Biden was having a 'stroke' on the 2024 debate stage.
Moderator Paola Ramos pointed to a comment one of President Biden's spokespeople, Andrew Bates, had made to the New York Post for a story published Thursday.
Bates had mused: 'We had a duty to win and we didn't. I think about that all the time. But I don't see why that painful conversation for the party needed to be publicly reopened right now.'
Pressed about the timing of her book, the former First Lady sassed at Bates.
'I want to say to Andrew, call me up and say it to my face,' Biden said.
The former First Lady also pushed that there was more to her book than just her retelling of 2024.
'I just want to say that my book has one chapter on the political wounds,' she said.
Former First Lady Jill Biden sassed one of her husband's most dedicated staffers, Andrew Bates, who had publicly questioned the timing of her book release
Former First Lady Jill Biden is embarking on a book tour upon the release of her White House memoir, View from the East Wing
'The rest of the book is my reflection on the four years in the White House,' she added.
Several short chapters were dedicated to the disastrous 2024 presidential debate, the fallout, President Biden's decision to drop out of the race and the lead-up to inauguration day.
She also dedicated an early chapter to the discovery that the former President had Stage 4 cancer four months after leaving office.
President Donald Trump used his predecessor's May 2025 diagnosis to suggest that Biden kept the health condition hidden from the American public while the Democrat was in office.
In her book, Dr Biden explained why that wasn't the case.
Old age concerns were what ultimately derailed President Biden's reelection campaign, with party members calling on him to bow out after his disastrous late June 2024 debate performance.
Biden White House sources, whom the Daily Mail spoke to, cast doubt on the former first lady's retelling of what happened at the debate.
She maintains that she had never seen her husband act like that before - or since.
Former First Lady Jill Biden meets attendees Wednesday night at her book event in Washington, DC, which took place at the historic Sixth and I Synagogue
Andrew Bates, a former spokesperson for President Joe Biden, questioned the timing of former First Lady Jill Biden's book release ahead of the midterm elections
'To this day, I do not know what happened,' she told the DC audience Wednesday night.
One of the Biden White House post-mortems - written by CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios's Alex Thompson - alleged there was a 'cover-up' of Biden's deteriorating condition.
'It's not like we're keeping a secret. It's like we don't know,' the former First Lady insisted.
'I saw Joe aging, I mean - my God - we all saw him aging,' Biden said Wednesday night, cracking up the audience.
Bates did not immediately respond to the Daily Mail's request for comment.
