CLIVE, Iowa — With 99 days left until the caucuses presidential campaigns are starting to hit crunch time.
At a house party for a “Women for Biden” event Saturday, former second lady Dr. Jill Biden urged voters to commit to a candidate, that candidate being her husband, Joe Biden, of course.
“I trust women’s intuition,” she said to a group of mostly women. “You know in your gut who can beat Trump and walk in day one and take over.”
Saturday was the official launching of the “Women for Biden” initiative. Channel 13 News spoke with Dr. Biden one-on-one, and she said the initiative is all about rallying women around her husband’s campaign and discussing issues that affect women, one of those being healthcare.
“Before the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies used to be able to charge women more for healthcare, just because we’re women,” Dr. Biden said. “From birth control to breast cancer, our health care has been scrutinized and stigmatized in a way that a man’s never has.”
She said it’s been difficult watching the Trump administration “stripping away the progress that we made.”
“We won’t let President Trump attack our rights and our families and our country,” Dr. Biden said.
What she did not mention to the group was the president’s most recent attacks on her family, specifically for their son Hunter Biden’s past business dealings with Ukraine.
Dr. Biden said any attacks or scrutiny can be difficult for a family, but she said this was not anything they weren’t prepared for. She said before her husband officially announced his campaign, they consulted with their family, warning that it would be a “tough race.” However, Dr. Biden said their grandchildren told them it was a fight worth fighting.
“We know who Donald Trump is and we’re a resilient family. We’re going to stick together, we’re going to do this together and we’re going to beat Donald Trump,” she said.
To the group, the former second lady also talked about her husband’s plan for higher education, which was unveiled earlier this month. Biden’s plan focuses on community college, unlike the plans of his progressive opponents, senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who are proposing free four-year universities and eliminating all student debt.
“It’s affordable, it’s practical, it’s pragmatic. He knows how he’s going to fund it and that’s why I think it’s a great plan,” his wife said.
His plan would guarantee two years of community college or other training for free and cost $750 billion per year, as well as help eliminate student loan debt. Compared with Warren’s $1.25 trillion plan, which would cancel most student loan debt and eliminate tuition at every public college, and Sanders’ $1.6 trillion plan, which would do the same except eliminate all student loan debt.
Dr. Jill Biden said her husband’s plan is particularly close to her heart, as she been an educator for over 35 years and currently teaches at a community college.
“Joe’s plan is teachers-centered. We’ve listed to them what they need done. They need more resources and their salaries to be raised.”
She said community college and trade schools often get overlooked in society, and her husband’s plan would help promote those options.
At the end of her speech to the group of around 50 voters, Dr. Biden said she felt confident about their support.
“There was so much energy and enthusiasm for Joe running for president,” she said.
Joe Biden will be back campaigning in Iowa on Wednesday, ahead of the Iowa Democratic Party’s annual Liberty and Justice dinner.
