On the campaign trail with the First Lady: Get engaged early, Jill Biden tells guests at Biden Victory Fund reception in Shoreline

Good after­noon, hap­py autumn, and wel­come back to NPI’s con­tin­u­ing cov­er­age of First Lady Jill Biden’s Sep­tem­ber 2023 vis­it to the Seat­tle area!

FLOTUS, as Dr. Biden is referred to in the lin­go of the White House press corps, has just fin­ished the sec­ond stop on her pub­lic itin­er­ary for the day: a Biden Vic­to­ry fund recep­tion in Shore­line with about one hun­dred supporters.

It’s one of two cam­paign events the First Lady is head­lin­ing today for the Biden-Har­ris cam­paign and the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty. I’m chron­i­cling both on behalf of the White House press corps as the edi­to­r­i­al pool reporter.

Our jour­ney to the Shore­line event began almost imme­di­ate­ly after the First Lady fin­ished par­tic­i­pat­ing in a lis­ten­ing ses­sion at Fred Hutchin­son Can­cer Research Cen­ter, which you can read about here. The motor­cade left the Fred Hutch cam­pus at 3:28 PM Pacif­ic Time, bound for Shoreline.

We arrived at 3:54 PM after a sun­ny and pleas­ant drive.

A few folks who might have been near­by res­i­dents snapped pho­tos of the motor­cade as we pulled into the neighborhood.

The First Lady’s fundrais­er in Shore­line took place at the home of Jaime Van Horne Robin­son and Jai­son Robin­son, accord­ing to the Biden-Har­ris campaign.

They reside in a man­sion on a large, beau­ti­ful, and leafy estate with a cir­cu­lar dri­ve­way and a spa­cious, detached garage.

At 4:12 PM, I was ush­ered into the event space.

(It is stan­dard pro­to­col at cam­paign fundrais­ing events for edi­to­r­i­al pool reporters to be brought in for the Pres­i­dent, Vice Pres­i­dent, First Lady, or Sec­ond Gen­tle­man’s remarks and then be escort­ed out once those remarks are finished.)

The recep­tion was held on the back patio of the man­sion, which has a nice view of Puget Sound flanked by trees. A buf­fet and cock­tail tables were set up along one side of the man­sion for the guests. Among the more than one hun­dred guests was Mar­tin Luther King Jr. Coun­ty Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty Chair Car­rie Barnes.

Some guests were seat­ed for the remarks, but some were standing.

Jaime intro­duced Dr. Biden.

“I can’t tear myself away from this beau­ti­ful view,” Biden said after step­ping up to the podi­um. She spoke of how hap­py she is to be back in Seattle.

She asked if any­one was from Philly; sev­er­al raised their hands.

The First Lady recount­ed meet­ing Pres­i­dent Biden for the first time and joked about how many times he had pro­posed to her, and how she had seen him live out his faith. “He has an unshake­able hope in the future of our coun­try,” she said, going on to tout the administration’s record.

She got applause when she men­tioned pas­sage of the Infla­tion Reduc­tion Act (and specif­i­cal­ly its cli­mate action pro­vi­sions), the con­fir­ma­tion of Jus­tice Ketan­ji Brown Jack­son, and Pres­i­dent Biden’s work to cre­ate jobs.

“He did all of this with integri­ty, with human­i­ty, and with wis­dom,” Dr. Biden said.

The Pres­i­dent needs four more years to get the job done, she told the crowd.

“My hus­band… has always been a cham­pi­on for women,” she emphasized.

She men­tioned Joe Biden’s decades-long work, includ­ing as a Unit­ed States Sen­a­tor, to defend access to con­tra­cep­tion, access to abor­tion, and writ­ing the Vio­lence Against Women Act. And she con­trast­ed it with the way that the oth­er major par­ty has been con­duct­ing itself in our nation’s capital.

“Look what’s going on. Watch what’s going to go on this week,” the First Lady said, lam­bast­ing House Repub­li­cans for fail­ing to pass leg­is­la­tion to pre­vent a gov­ern­ment shut­down and launch­ing an impeach­ment inquiry.

“Your choic­es are so clear,” she said, refer­ring to the upcom­ing 2024 elec­tion, char­ac­ter­iz­ing the Repub­li­can oppo­si­tion as marked by chaos and corruption.

She asked atten­dees to go out and talk to their friends about Biden’s record.

“We need you. All of you. Don’t let it be like that elec­tion in 2016, when we woke up and said to our­selves, My God, what have we done,” she said.

“Togeth­er, we’re going to win this elec­tion, and then we’re going to fin­ish the job,” she said in closing.

Very short­ly after that, around 4:26 PM, I head­ed back to the press van to be ready to depart to our next stop, which will be on Mer­cer Island.