First Lady Pool Reports of April 8, 2024

Pool report on Ladue, Mo. fundraising event

FLOTUS pool report – Ladue, Mo.

About 30 people gathered in the suburban St. Louis home of Joyce Aboussie, a longtime Democratic operative and former top aide to U.S. Rep. Richard Gephardt, to receive U.S. First Lady Jill Biden for a Biden Victory Fund fundraising event on Monday afternoon.

Biden flew in to St. Louis Lambert International Airport from Wilmington, Delaware.
Aboussie introduced the first lady by recalling a time Biden accepted her invitation to visit patients at St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital, a favored cause of Aboussie's.

Biden began her remarks by remarking upon the day's solar eclipse, which she said she viewed from the plane earlier Monday.

She explained the splint on her right hand: reinforcement for her wrist after shaking so many hands on the campaign trail.

She also recognized Gephardt in the audience, noting that Gephardt and her husband briefly competed for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988.

Biden then told the stories of how she grew up outside of Philadelphia and of how she and the president met and got married before the speech turned to politics.

She said the president's signature American Rescue Plan Act rescued the country coming out of the pandemic. "He opened the schools," she said. "He got us vaccines."

She also mentioned his successful efforts to pass the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the CHIPS and Science Act.

Biden said a second Trump presidency would put American democracy at risk.

"Talk to your friends," she told the audience. "Tell them how important this election is … we have to remember, we have to win this election. We know what we're getting if we don't … I'm going to be out there every day, even if it hurts my hand a little bit."

Biden was expected to fly to Washington, D.C. later Monday.