Jill Biden on Hunter’s pardon and her husband’s turbulent political end
June 4, 2026
AI Summary
5 min readJill Biden had just walked off the debate stage with her husband when he turned to her and said, “I really effed up, didn’t I?” She answered, “Yes, you did.” In that moment, she told NPR’s Scott Detrow, she was terrified. “I thought, oh my God, what’s happening? Is this a stroke?” She had noticed in the elevator beforehand that his color looked off. But there had been other times when he said he wasn’t feeling great and then rallied. This time, he did rally—he went on to three more events that night, meeting supporters at a hotel ballroom, then a Waffle House, then flying to North Carolina at three in the morning to a band playing and hundreds of supporters. “He was fine,” she said. “And so when people say to me, what happened in that moment? I don’t know. I mean I don’t know what happened. It was inexplicable.”
The summer of 2024 and the decision to drop out
Biden says she never saw another moment like that debate, before or after. She pushed back on reports from White House staffers who claimed they had seen other episodes. “No one came to me and said, ‘Jill, I have seen this moment at blank the blank.’ No one on the medical staff… they never said it to me either.”
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What you'll learn
- 1 (01:19) **The Night of the Debate** - Dr. Jill Biden describes the immediate aftermath of President Biden's disastrous June 2024 debate performance.
- 2 (08:06) **The Decision to Drop Out** - How the family experienced the pressure from Democratic leaders and the final decision to end the campaign.
- 3 (13:33) **On Kamala Harris and the Election Outcome** - Dr. Biden's reaction to Vice President Harris's loss and her own surprise at the results.
- 4 (16:50) **The Personal Toll and "Dark Period"** - The hurtful experience of being abandoned by friends and supporters during the campaign's final months.
- 5 (17:45) **Shuttling Between France and Hunter's Trial** - Why she felt compelled to be both First Lady in France and a mother at her son's trial in the same week.
- 6 (20:50) **The Unfair Process and the Pardon** - The rationale behind President Biden's change of heart on pardoning his son, Hunter.
- 7 (22:44) **The Strangeness of the COVID Presidency** - Recalling the surreal and isolating experience of entering the White House during a pandemic.
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Guests on this episode
Show Notes
In this episode of NPR’s Newsmakers, Biden sits down with host Scott Detrow to discuss her new book, View from the East Wing: A Memoir. She opens up about the infamous 2024 presidential debate that doomed President Joe Biden’s campaign -- when his performance so concerned those in his inner circle, Biden says her husband was checked by doctors after leaving the stage -- and the personal and political toll of the months that followed.
She also reveals Joe Biden “truly changed his mind” on pardoning their son Hunter, who was convicted on federal gun and tax charges in 2024. She says it was then-candidate Donald Trump’s rhetoric about Hunter’s criminal cases that eventually led her husband to pardon their son, who faced prison time.
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