Jill Biden blames global crises for ‘stalked’ progress at the White House

U.S. First Lady Jill Biden expressed frustration on Saturday over the “stalked” progress of President Joe Biden’s term in the White House. The statement came during a private Democratic National Committee fundraiser.

The first lady said during the event in Nantucket, Massachusetts, that her husband has been constantly challenged by unexpected crises while in office, blaming global problems.

Biden’s remarks come when the president’s approval rating is at 33%, according to a recent New York Times and Siena College poll, which also noted that just 13% of Americans say the country is heading in the right direction. .

“[O presidente] had so many hopes and plans for the things he wanted to do, but every time you turned around, he had to solve the problems of the moment,” Biden said, speaking to about two dozen attendees at a private home on the popular island of vacation on the coast of Massachusetts.

Jill Biden also announced that she hopes to meet next week with Olena Zelenska, Ukraine’s first lady, whom she last met in May during an unannounced trip to Ukraine. She did not elaborate on the agenda for her upcoming meeting, and CNN reached out to Biden’s office for more details.

On the domestic front, the First Lady noted gun violence, the Supreme Court’s important decision in Roe v. Wade (which guarantees the right to abortion) and the war in Ukraine as problems that the president did not foresee.

“He had so many things thrown his way,” she said. “Who would have thought about what happened [com a Suprema Corte derrubando] Roe v Wade? Well, maybe we predicted it, but we still don’t believe it. Gun violence in this country is absolutely terrible. We didn’t see the war in Ukraine coming.”

Biden said she, too, felt undermined in her role as First Lady and was unexpectedly pulled in other directions from the course she initially intended.

“I was saying to myself, ‘Okay, I was second lady. I worked at community colleges. I worked with military families. I worked with cancer.’ They should be my areas of focus. But when we arrived [na Casa Branca]I had to be, with everything that was going on, the first lady of the moment.”

The First Lady shared her frustration with last month’s turnaround in the Roe v. Wade, which ended the federal constitutional right to abortion.

Jill added that while she supported the right to protest, being angry at the decision, in her view, is not enough — contradicting the president’s statements last week where he encouraged women to “continue protesting”, adding that protesting is “critically important.”

She said she told her own family members that they should think about doing more than protesting.

“So many girls, including my own granddaughters, went to the Supreme Court and marched. I say, ‘Okay, good for you. But what are you going to do next? You feel good about yourself because you voiced your opinion, but what are you going to do next? What’s your plan?””

The White House has recognized that a path forward to re-establishing the right to abortion is narrow and, at this time, undetermined.

Jill Biden also criticized Congress during her remarks, blaming Republicans for the administration’s stagnant agenda. the broad plan Build Back Better Biden’s policy — which would have expanded the country’s social safety net — took its final blow this week when Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, a moderate Democrat, ruled out including any climate or tax provisions in the bill.

In a narrowly divided Senate, Democrats needed Manchin’s support to pass legislation along party lines in a process called budget reconciliation, which requires all 50 members of the Democratic caucus to agree to advance legislation.

“I know there are so many opponents who say we will be defeated in the midterm elections. OK. The Republicans are hard at work, they stick together, for better or for worse. So we have to work harder,” she said.

Saturday’s event marked the second DNC fundraiser the first lady attended during a two-day trip to Massachusetts. On Thursday, she made remarks, predominantly focused on political action, at a private event in Andover.

CNN’s Jasmine Wright contributed to this story