“[The President] had so many hopes and plans for things he wanted to do, but every time you turned around, he had to address the problems of the moment,” said Biden, speaking to about two dozen attendees at a private home on the popular vacation island off the coast of Massachusetts.
“He’s just had so many things thrown his way,” she said. “Who would have ever thought about what happened [with the Supreme Court overturning] Roe v Wade? Well, maybe we saw it coming, but still we didn’t believe it. The gun violence in this country is absolutely appalling. We didn’t see the war in Ukraine coming.”
Biden said she, too, felt hamstrung in her role as first lady, and had been unexpectedly pulled in other directions from the course she initially intended.
“I was saying to myself, ‘Okay, I was second lady. I worked on community colleges. I worked on military families. I’ve worked on cancer.’ They were supposed to be my areas of focus. But then when we got [in the White House,] I had to be, with all that was happening, the first lady of the moment.”
Biden said she told her own family members they should think about doing more than protesting.
“So many young girls, my own grandchildren included, went up to the Supreme Court and marched. I say, ‘Okay, good for you. But what are you going to do next? You feel good about yourself because you voiced your opinion but what are you going to do next? What is your plan?'”
“I know there are so many nay-sayers who say we’ll get slammed in the midterms. Okay. The Republicans are working hard, they stick together, for good or evil. So, we just have to work harder,” she said.
Saturday’s event marked the second DNC fundraiser the first lady has attended during a two-day swing to Massachusetts. On Thursday, she made remarks, predominantly focused on political action, at a private event in Andover.
CNN’s Jasmine Wright contributed to this report.
