Jill Biden arrives in Seattle
First Lady Jill Biden waves as she steps off of her Air Force transport in Seattle after nightfall on September 21st (Photo: Andrew Villeneuve/NPI)

Dr. Jill Biden is back in the Emer­ald City!

Moments ago, the First Lady of the Unit­ed States stepped off her Air Force trans­port after a cross-coun­try flight from the oth­er Wash­ing­ton, begin­ning a mul­ti-day vis­it to Seat­tle which will include both offi­cial and cam­paign stops.

Biden land­ed after night­fall at Boe­ing Field on a pleas­ant, dry Pacif­ic North­west evening. She was greet­ed by King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Dow Con­stan­tine and then stepped into a wait­ing motor­cade to head to her Seat­tle accommodations.

Pri­or to head­ing west, the First Lady joined Pres­i­dent Joe Biden in greet­ing Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Pres­i­dent Volodymyr Zelen­skyy and his wife, Ole­na Volodymyriv­na Zelen­s­ka at the White House. The cou­ple jour­neyed to the Dis­trict of Colum­bia to ral­ly sup­port for Ukraine on Capi­tol Hill after par­tic­i­pat­ing in the open­ing week of the Unit­ed Nations gen­er­al assem­bly in New York, New York.

“Putin thought he would break Ukraine. He thought he could break you. He had under­es­ti­mat­ed the con­se­quence of tak­ing on Ukrain­ian peo­ple. From your chil­dren to your grand­par­ents, I’ve nev­er seen so much courage exhib­it­ed by civil­ians. It real­ly is amaz­ing. It’s amaz­ing,” Zelen­skyy told Pres­i­dent Biden in remarks at the White House after an expand­ed bila­te­r­i­al meeting.

The First Lady’s meet­ing with Ole­na Volodymyriv­na Zelen­s­ka, which took place in the after­noon East­ern time, was closed press, with no pool spray.

Dr. Biden has no pub­lic events sched­uled tonight, but tomor­row, she will be at the Fred Hutchin­son Can­cer Research Cen­ter in Seat­tle and at two cam­paign recep­tions for the Biden Vic­to­ry Fund in Shore­line and Mer­cer Island.

Here’s the First Lady’s sched­ule for tomor­row as announced by the White House:

Sched­ule for First Lady Dr. Jill Biden
Sep­tem­ber 22nd, 2023
Seat­tle, Washington
All times Pacific

At 2:20 PM, as part of the Biden Administration’s Uni­ty Agen­da and Can­cer Moon­shot, the First Lady will vis­it the Fred Hutchin­son Can­cer Cen­ter in Seat­tle, WA to high­light the impor­tance of sup­port­ing can­cer sur­vivors through spe­cial­ized care and research, includ­ing sur­vivors of child­hood can­cers and breast cancer.

At 4:00 PM, the First Lady will deliv­er remarks at a polit­i­cal event for the Biden Vic­to­ry Fund in Shore­line, WA.

At 6:00 PM, the First Lady will deliv­er remarks at a polit­i­cal event for the Biden Vic­to­ry Fund in Mer­cer Island, WA.

The focus of the vis­it to Fred Hutchin­son will be cel­e­brat­ing the progress of the Biden-Har­ris admin­is­tra­tion’s Can­cer Moon­shot, which the White House says “has spurred tremen­dous action across the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment and from the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors, build­ing a strong foun­da­tion for the work ahead.”

“To date, the Can­cer Moon­shot has announced rough­ly fifty new pro­grams, poli­cies, and resources to address five pri­or­i­ty actions. More than one hun­dred pri­vate com­pa­nies, non-prof­its, aca­d­e­m­ic insti­tu­tions, and patient groups have also stepped up with new actions and collaborations.”

There is much more to do, of course, and we expect we’ll get a sta­tus update about some of the pro­grams the admin­is­tra­tion is sup­port­ing tomorrow.

The First Lady’s Sep­tem­ber 2023 West Coast trip will also include a Cal­i­for­nia leg with cam­paign recep­tions in the cities of Los Ange­les and San Diego.

NPI will pro­vide con­tin­u­ing cov­er­age of the First Lady’s Seat­tle vis­it right here on The Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate through­out the day tomorrow.

About the author

Andrew Villeneuve is the founder and executive director of the Northwest Progressive Institute, as well as the founder of NPI's sibling, the Northwest Progressive Foundation. He has worked to advance progressive causes for over two decades as a strategist, speaker, author, and organizer. Andrew is also a cybersecurity expert, a veteran facilitator, a delegate to the Washington State Democratic Central Committee, and a member of the Climate Reality Leadership Corps.

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