Former first lady Jill Biden spilled on an uncomfortable exchange between her and Melania Trump while in a motorcade ride to the U.S. Capitol on the day of President Donald Trump’s second inauguration.
The former first lady — per reporting on her new memoir — writes that “Melania blamed Joe personally” for the FBI searching through her “private spaces” at Mar-a-Lago in 2022, concerns that Donald Trump himself brought up at a rally back in December.
“I have compassion for her, having been subject to the same kind of search. I knew how distressing it was to have agents rummage through your underwear drawer,” she wrote.
Jill Biden also used the book to note that attorney John Bessler — husband of Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and a member of the inauguration committee — was tasked with “arguably one of the trickiest assignments” to escort the two to the Capitol, where Donald Trump was set to be sworn in a second time.
“I don’t know how long this has been tradition, but it certainly helps with the awkwardness,” wrote the former first lady of Bessler’s role and joking that he “must have drawn the shortest of all possible straws” to get the gig.
“The presidents’ car was likely frosty too, but at least they’d spent considerable time in each other’s company,” she continued. “This would be one of few interactions Melania and I had ever had.”
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Elsewhere on the ride, Jill Biden wrote that Melania Trump offered a terse response when she asked about her son, Barron Trump, and his studies.
“‘NYU,’ Melania said, looking out the window,” she wrote. “Melania kept trying to switch the topic to the weather.”
The former first lady also reflected on one of her few exchanges with Melania Trump several months prior to the president’s 2024 election win.
Jill Biden claimed she called Melania Trump to check in on her and her son following the 2024 assassination attempt against her husband at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
She described Melania Trump as “polite and controlled as ever” over the phone.
Elsewhere in the book and her surrounding press tour, Biden has discussed her husband’s train wreck 2024 debate performance and also addressed his prostate cancer diagnosis, telling MS NOW’s “Morning Joe” this week that she’s unsure if he would’ve had to resign as a result of the diagnosis.
