A presidential historian said during an interview over the weekend that one of the main driving forces behind President Joe Biden’s decision to run for re-election was his wife, Jill Biden.
Douglas Brinkley, author of “The Unfinished Presidency,” told CBS News’ “Face The Nation” on Sunday that Jill Biden has done the exact opposite of what other first ladies have done.
He noted that both former Presidents Harry Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson decided to leave office because their wives told them they didn’t want to serve a second term.
“She is the vital part. Dr. Jill Biden is it,” he said. “You know, if you go back to 1952, Harry Truman could have run, and he didn’t. Why? Well, the Korean War and, you know, other reasons. But — but Bess wanted to go back to Independence [Missouri] — she didn’t like it in Washington.”
“If you cut to ’68, Lyndon Johnson was – quit in March of ’68 and people will say because of Walter Cronkite. No,” he continued. “The big thing was his health was bad, he had a bad heart, he was smoking, high blood pressure, tension, and Lady Bird Johnson didn’t want to stay in. And she wanted – let’s go back to Texas and convinced Johnson to step down.”
“That’s not the case with Jill Biden. She likes power. She wants to stay. She wants some sense of revenge,” he continued. “She teaches in Virginia Community College. This milieu around our building here, this is her home. And the idea of relinquishing it all after you’ve taken the slings and arrows of the last years of attacks, and at the last minute, just when you get all the delegates you’re going to say, I’m going to open it up to a bunch of people — it’s very childish when you read those kind of reports.”
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