WASHINGTON (AP) – New First Lady Jill Biden made an unexpected detour to the U.S. Capitol on Friday to deliver baskets of chocolate chip cookies to National Guard members, thanking them “for keeping me safe and secure.” my family “during President Joe Biden ‘s inauguration.
“I just want to thank President Biden and the whole Biden family,” he told a group of Guard members at the Capitol. “The White House baked you some chocolate chip cookies,” she said, before joking that she couldn’t say she had baked them herself.
Joe Biden took office Wednesday, exactly two weeks after Donald Trump supporters revolted at the Capitol in a futile attempt to keep Congress from not certifying Biden as the winner of the November presidential election. Extensive security measures were then taken for the inauguration, which was fired without any major incident.
Jill Biden told the group that her late son, Beau, was a member of the Delaware Army National Guard who spent a year deployed in Iraq in 2008-09. Beau Biden died of brain cancer in 2015 at the age of 46.
“So I am a National Guard mother,” she said, adding that the baskets were a “small thank you” for leaving her home states and arriving in the country’s capital. President Biden thanked him on Friday in a phone call to the head of the National Guard Office.
“I appreciate everything you do,” the first lady said. “The National Guard will always occupy a special place in the heart of all bidens.”
The unexpected visit of Jill Biden’s troops came after her first public outing as first lady.
He highlighted services for cancer patients at Whitman-Walker Health, a Washington institution with a track record of caring for HIV / AIDS patients and the LGBTQ community. The clinic receives federal money to help provide primary care services in underserved areas.
Staff told the first lady that cancer tests had dropped since last March because patients did not want to enter because of the coronavirus pandemic. More and more patients are taking advantage of the options to see a doctor online.
When the question of universal broadband Internet access was raised, Jill Biden, who is a teacher, said she listens to teachers across the country who cannot get in touch with their students because of the ‘irregular access to some areas.
“We just have to work together and address some of these things,” he said. “The first thing we need to do is tackle this pandemic and vaccinate everyone, get back to work and go back to their schools and get things back to normal again.”