Below is my column in the New York Post on the latest claims of former First Lady Jill Biden on her book tour. Today, “View from the East Wing” will be released after a rocky pre-release tour. Her interviews certainly produced buzz, but not necessarily the type that she was seeking. Her claims on the pardon of Hunter Biden are part of an effort to rewrite history that borders on utter fantasy. It appears that the former First Lady would like to be known as both a fiction and nonfiction author.
Here is the column:
Jill Biden’s book is not even out yet — and she’s already trying to get it displayed on both the fiction and the non-fiction shelves.
From her husband’s mental decline to the pardoning of her son, the former first lady has moved from the historical to the fanciful.
Thomas Jefferson once wrote that “honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom” — but if her promotional interviews are any measure, that chapter appears to be entirely missing from “View from the East Wing: A Memoir.”
Last week Biden faced a torrent of criticism, including from Democrats like her former spokesperson, over her claim to CBS News that she thought her husband’s debate meltdown meant he might have been suffering a stroke.
The interviewer didn’t mention the fact that Biden famously declared at the time that her husband was brilliant in the debate, and denied he was showing signs of mental decline.
Now, Jill Biden is rewriting the history of one of the most infamous lies Joe Biden ever spun.
While running for office, Biden and his staff repeatedly insisted that he would never pardon son Hunter Biden under any circumstances.
White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre became indignant and mocked reporters who continued to ask about a pardon after the then-president had repeatedly promised not to do so.
Now Jill is saying the pardon was the obvious and right thing to do.
After all, she insisted, “Then the Justice Department changed. And I think that the process was not fair to Hunter.”
“When Trump was elected,” she added, “we knew that he would target Hunter.”
Just one problem: It was her husband’s Justice Department, and two different panels of jurors, who convicted Hunter.
Indeed, even juries in the Bidens’ home state of Delaware and the heavily Democratic state of California declared him guilty.
The only pending matter was his sentencing before the same judges that President Biden assured us would be allowed to resolve the cases.
Indeed, even after those convictions, the Biden administration declared that the president would not break his promise and pardon his son.
Presidents have long waited until the final days of their terms to grant controversial or self-serving pardons — like Bill Clinton’s pardon of his own brother.
However, none but Joe Biden had made the denial of such a pardon an issue in his presidential campaign, and none had repeatedly denied any possibility of it.
Yet Jill Biden’s new claim shows the Bidens view the public as chumps and dupes who will blindly accept anything that the establishment gives them.
“I truly supported it,” she now insists, because “we just could not let our son go to jail on a charge that no one would go, I mean, no one has ever gone to jail for.”
Her son was convicted on nine tax evasion charges, in addition to multiple gun violations.
Defendants have gone to jail for these offenses in many cases, including defendants in Delaware.
Do the Bidens imagine the public will believe that no one has gone to jail for tax evasion?
Apparently, yes they do.
What’s particularly galling is that Hunter Biden was allowed to escape charges for other federal crimes, including his alleged influence peddling that produced millions from foreign interests.
President Biden notably pardoned his son for any crimes that he may have committed from “Jan. 1, 2014, to Dec. 1, 2024.”
If the family was so afraid of retaliation by Trump, why didn’t Joe Biden pardon his son for all crimes except those for which he was convicted during his administration?
That would still have been an abuse of power, but it would at least have maintained the president’s promise to allow the prior cases to proceed without interference.
Of course, Jill Biden is pitching this book to the same diehard base that spent years engaged in willful blindness over her family’s corruption and her husband’s decline.
After the pardon, the same Democrats who echoed Biden’s prior denials of the possibility of any pardon ran to the cameras to treat his turnaround as much ado about nothing.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Senate majority whip, even called it a “labor of love.”
Polls found only two out of 10 citizens supported Biden’s pardon — but that 20% is precisely the target audience for this work of pure fantasy.
All that’s missing are a Sorcerer’s Stone, talking White House portraits and a group of young Democratic wizards.
Jill Biden’s book is scheduled to be followed by a book by Joe — just in time for the 2028 presidential campaigns.
Both appear to have ripped a page from the book of Winston Churchill, who said: “History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.”
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
“I appreciate that we now get to see at least some version of a truth that she’s putting out there,” CNN’s Abby Phillip said last week, “because I think, yeah, the conversation should be had about the deceptiveness that was behind this. Like that’s the conversation that I think ought to be had. The autopsy that the Democrats did didn’t delve into that, but it should. What kind of political system covers that up? And makes it OK to lie to people about what everybody knows is true?”
“I think Democrats do have to be honest about the mistakes that we made in 2024,” Senator Chris Murphy(D) said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
“Obviously, in retrospect, Joe Biden should have stepped away from that race. We should have had an open contest.”
Yes, drop the only candidate with a proven history of defeating Trump in the run-up to an election.
Enjoying the $5 a gallon gasoline when Trump crowed about getting below $2?
It’s hard being unimportant! And sadly, she thinks than people don’t see through this when Joe Biden’s decline was noticeable from the time he walked onto his basement podium to accept his nomination. Having lived with someone with dementia, it is not something you ‘don’t see’! It is something that drives you to testing and recognition of the condition to help the person in decline. The Bidens have put their desire for fame over care of Joe! What a disgrace all those who put Joe over country! And there are many who did so this. History will not treat the Bidens well nor those he supported him.
“It’s hard being unimportant! ”
It is why Turley writes these columns.
Joe Biden spent 577 days away from the White House, the rest of the time he was cutting backroom deals in Ukraine, China, anywhere else He and Hunter could get away with, and spent the rest of his time hiding out from the Press in the White House Basement.
Jill kept the Mortgage Brokers busy running the money through the Rehoboth Beach Chinese Laundry. All the while Auto Pen took care of the Nations business.
A.I. (Joe Biden’s Vacation Days in Office)
President Joe Biden spent approximately 577 days away from the White House over his four-year term (2021–2025), which accounts for roughly 39% of his presidency. This tally includes weekends, personal business, and holidays spent primarily at his homes in Delaware, alongside longer vacations.
Because a president’s location does not mean they have stopped working, the designation of time away from Washington is heavily debated.
Breakdown of Time Away:
Primary Locations: Most of these days were spent in Delaware, particularly at his residences in Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach.
RNC Data: According to analyses by the Republican National Committee, his total time away from the White House over his full term was 577 days.
Working Status: While critics argue this is an excessive amount of time off, the White House maintained that Biden continued to conduct official business and remained on call while traveling.Comparison to Former Presidents Measuring presidential vacation time is notoriously difficult because presidents technically work wherever they go.
However, tracking time spent away from Washington D.C. allows for comparisons with his predecessors:
George W. Bush: Spent about 1,020 days (or roughly 35%) of his eight years in office away from the White House.
Donald Trump: Spent an estimated 380+ days (about 26% of his first term) taking personal trips, predominantly at his own properties.
Barack Obama: Took about 328 days off over his eight years in office.
Jimmy Carter: Spent 79 days away from Washington during his four-year term, making him one of the most consistent White House residents.
Really Truly ‘nothing to see here’ with the Bidens (just crookedness). Don’t loose focus on; Brennan, Comey, H. Clinton …. THE LIST.
Wherever the President goes, they are still President, unless they hold a golf club and are concentrating on fudging their score.
“It feels unfair, essentially, at this point, to the party, that if you want to cement any piece of your husband’s legacy, let people move on from this and win some more elections, and then they can point to things and say, like, we’re building on the successes that we saw under the Biden administration,” Democratic strategist Jessica Tarlov said on Fox News last week.
There it is! All about the party, moving on so people memories would of faded and then try to spin wins as success under the Biden admin!
But here we have Dr. Jill, spelling it out, plain and simple exactly what we all thought and knew at the time. Even Andrew Cuomo recently ripped the DNC over it,
Cuomo rips fellow Dems for putting up ‘incapable’ Joe Biden in 2024: ‘Where was everyone?’
“[Biden] got on the debate stage, and it was obvious to everyone. You didn’t have to be a psychiatric or a medical professional to realize he was not up to the job,” Cuomo said on WABC radio’s “The Pulse of the People” show.
https://nypost.com/2026/05/25/us-news/cuomo-rips-fellow-dems-for-putting-up-incapable-joe-biden-in-2024/
Jill Biden on life in, and after, the White House
In her new memoir, “View from the East Wing,” former first lady Jill Biden discusses her four years in the White House. She sits down with correspondent Rita Braver to talk about the legacy of her husband’s presidency, as well as the challenges that Joe Biden faced, from the January 6 insurrection by Trump supporters aimed at overturning his 2020 election victory, to a 2024 debate performance that led to Biden ending his reelection bid. She also discusses her husband’s prostate cancer diagnosis; his pardon of son Hunter Biden; and the demolition of the White House’s East Wing by President Trump to erect a ballroom.
By: Jane Pauley – CBS News Sunday Morning ~ May 31, 2026
Full Episode 22:5/31/2026
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/053126-sunday-morning/
“View from the East Wing: A Memoir.”
Shouldn’t that read “West Wing?”
That’s where cabinet meetings are held.
FDR constructed the East Wing to create a space where the First Lady had her own office, staff, held functions, etc. Jill Biden, Melania Trump, Michelle Obama, Laura Bush, et al, all had a tiny office in the East Wing, hence Jill Biden’s book title
Donald Trump recently tore it down to expand the White House for a ball room, which drew outrage from the Left. Little mention was made by the Legacy Media as to how the building of the East Wing in 1942 was characterized as a wasteful expenditure and done for FDR’s posterity.
During Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency, the White House saw the addition of the East Wing in 1942 to house additional staff and offices, reflecting the growing complexity of the federal government during World War II. The East Wing over time provided space for the first lady’s staff and social functions, including a shelter for wartime security.
The East Wing’s construction was highly controversial due to its timing during wartime. Congressional Republicans labeled the expenditure as wasteful, with some accusing Roosevelt of using the project to bolster his presidency’s image. The secretive nature of the construction, tied to military purposes, further fueled suspicions. However, the East Wing’s utility in supporting the modern presidency eventually quieted critics.
https://www.whitehousehistory.org/an-ever-changing-white-house
“hence Jill Biden’s book title”
I was being flip.
West Wing/cabinet meetings — because she led them and directed the Administration.
No doubt the ballroom will see the same benefits, because ballroom dancing is making a comeback, right?
what do you expect for a husting Ho…who attached herself to Joe as Baby sitter.
She raised some of the worst kids in America
Joe was not only the worst president in our history, he was the most dishonest. Why expect his wife to be any different?
By the way, that is an ironic quote from TJ, who was also one of the most deceitful presidents in our history. He didn’t often have to face the same scrutiny and even hired his own journalist to fight his battles (though the journalist eventually turned on him) and, as in other ways, he was a great and brilliant man, knew how to manipulate everyone and play the sage. Biden has no such abilities. Only where half the country is corrupt and deluded could he win.
TJ was not the only other snake to ever occupy the White House, but he is surely up there with his controller (obama et al). We single him out because of our modern communication/social media allows for up-close inspection of the details but I think that if we could get that close of a view of LBJ we might be even more appalled.
This triumvarite of father, mother and son constitute a wet sack of moral and ethical turpitude. The trainwreck of an administration which they engineered has mired this nation in the socio-political and economic swamp which it is currently struggling to work its way out of. The only ‘doctoring’, Jill Biden can claim to have any relationship to is that of the figure of Victor Frankenstein, the whole of her monster being equal to the some of its parts. Her literary effort is little more than a tale told to the idiots who made her possible, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Do you actually think that the social, political and financial mess in which we now find ourselves was the doing of this dysfunctional family group? Let us go back to, at a minimum., the dems who controlled this nation under LBJ and realize that Tail gunner Joe was right all along and that we were being infested with communists all the way back to another prog democrat – Woodrow Wilson, followed by FDR. This tragic mess took many generations of active dem/socialists and somnambulist republicans to get where we are now.
Jill and Joe, what a pair, and then there is the misbegotten Hunter.
The are so many places that this book might be placed.
Fiction
Non-fiction
Science fiction – the man without a brain was president
Fairy Tales
Abnormal Psychology
Family Studies
Etc.
Hunter “Convicted Felon” Biden refused to pay his fair share of taxes. No Democrat who supports anyone named Biden has any credibility on taxes, and has no right to demand any other American pay more in taxes after the Biden Crime Syndicate allowed Hunter to skate on tax evasion. Failure to pay taxes is theft from the American people, and Jill and Joey Biden just rub people’s noses in it, laughing all the way to the bank.
The absolute blindness in this comment section is remarkable. You are eagerly mocking a past president’s decline to attack a book tour, while completely tuning out the incoherent, daily verbal static coming from the current Oval Office.
If you want to lecture people on “cognitive clarity,” look at Donald Trump’s actual public speeches. Consider his infamous, multi-step tangent on nuclear energy, where he declared:
“Look, having nuclear — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they’d say I’m one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it’s true!”
He then careened wildly into talking about the power of the military, the strength of the economy, and the nuclear capabilities of foreign nations, all within a single breathless, non-linear sentence.
Ask yourself honestly: is this the speech pattern of a mind fully in control of its cognitive functions? You cannot claim to be the arbiters of mental fitness while nodding along to these unhinged, rambling executive tangents. Mocking Jill Biden’s memoir while giving a total pass to a sitting president who uses his speeches to loop endlessly and make up his own reality isn’t a serious political critique—it’s just selective partisan hearing.
Trump, Trump, Trump…… so tiresome.
Give it up, dear.
Trump has always liked to jump around when he’s riffing to a crowd off the cuff. Trump is annoyingly spry for his age. Trying to claim that Trump is in mental decline is ridiculous. You guys have been trying it since the “Covfefe” incident. (In which, rather hilariously, Trump trolled you all by doubling down rather than admitting that he just fat fingered a twitter)
The speech pattern looks strange in a transcript, but when you see it live, he’s usually bouncing off the crowd’s energy and obviously not following the speech on the teleprompter. He’s not just saying that in monotone like it reads in a transcript.
On the other hand, you bent over backwards to say that Biden was sharp as a tack, and “The best Biden has ever been!” even as he was announcing the stage directions from the teleprompter, wandering off, mumbling nonsense, and declaring the he “beat medicare”. And, it is worth noting, that the transcripts of Biden’s speech were notoriously cleaned up to reflect “what he meant to say” rather than the twisting mumbles that he actually said.
So when you try to say that Trump is in mental decline nobody believes you outside of the people who just hate Trump anyway. You’re not convincing anyone. You can claim Trump is a bad president, you can claim is policies are foolish, you can claim all kinds of things about Trump, but trying to claim that he’s senile just makes you look absurd.
The cognitive dissonance required to write this is wild. You literally admit that Trump’s speech patterns look completely bizarre in a transcript, but you excuse it as ‘spry riffing’ and ‘bouncing off the crowd’s energy.’ If any other politician stood at a podium and delivered a non-linear, stream-of-consciousness rant about sharks, electrocuting boat batteries, and windmills, you would be demanding an immediate cognitive intervention. But because it’s Trump, you dress up obvious mental wandering as a stylistic performance.
Your ‘teleprompter’ excuse completely falls apart when looking at his actual speeches. Once, Trump stood before a crowd and delivered a completely incoherent legal rant claiming that past presidential pardons were ‘void’ because they were signed with an autopen. That wasn’t an energetic ‘riff’—that was a sitting president completely fabricating non-existent constitutional rules on the fly because he couldn’t maintain a coherent legal thought.
You accuse others of bending over backward for Biden, yet you are doing gymnastics to turn a midnight typo like ‘covfefe’ into a genius political trap. It’s simple: you are entirely willing to ignore daily, glaring linguistic slips, slurred words, and looping incoherent rants from Trump because you like his policies, while pretending to be an expert in cognitive decline only when it suits your politics.
X, the only time you try to write anything sensical is when you become impressed with others’ comments and copy others’ words, like “cognitive dissonance” and “pseudo-intellectual” and “conflate.” The only thought and word that originally applies to you is “ROLF! HIlarious!”
> You literally admit that Trump’s speech patterns look completely bizarre in a transcript
Do you understand that much of human speech looks terrible in transcript? People frequently speak in fragments and jump around. I’ve seen cases, for instance, where Trump was asking something of his staff off to the side, but the reply is unheard because they aren’t on mic and so it isn’t in the transcript. I don’t particularly like his speeches (or any politician’s for that matter), but that is different than declaring that he’s senile based on a transcript. Show me the unedited video of him mumbling incoherently, wandering off, and declaring that he “beat medicare”. I’ve yet to see it.
I don’t know what sort of satanic bargain he made to be that healthy and spry as an obese octogenarian, but the fact remains that Trump just isn’t senile. You can say that he’s wrong. You can say that he’s a narcissist. You can say that he is ignorant. But he’s just not senile.
> you are doing gymnastics to turn a midnight typo like ‘covfefe’ into a genius political trap.
I never called it “genius”. But I remember the Democrats declaring that the 25 amendment must be invoked over the obvious fat finger and Trump trolling them by doubling down on it instead of just admitting what it was.
“Do you understand that much of human speech looks terrible in transcript?”
Excellent point and absolutely true.
I have seen transcripts of speeches given by professional speakers and world famous writers. They were a hot mess that required hours of editing to make them clear for reading. Repetitions (common in speaking) had to be deleted, and language added to satisfy basic grammar. There was always an editor’s preface and editor’s notes explaining the reasons for those changes to the speech.
What a life for Dr Jill, now with no friends, no respect, no achievements, no legacy, flawed kids, crooked husband, and on. Lies for her companions, fantasy for her dreams, and Joe for her reality.
Does Johnathon’s column draw our attention from Melania Trump to Jill Biden as “expectant widow”?
Turley, your fury over Joe Biden reversing his campaign promise is a superficial complaint designed purely to feed your readers’ outrage. The U.S. Constitution grants the president an absolute, unchecked power to issue pardons, and history is filled with leaders using it for controversial, personal, or deeply emotional reasons, including Bill Clinton pardoning his own brother. Hunter Biden fully paid his back taxes before sentencing, and his pardon harms no one. Yet, you stay entirely silent on Donald Trump’s truly shocking use of the executive pen, which includes erasing $1.5 billion in financial restitution debts that wealthy white-collar fraudsters owed directly to innocent victims and American taxpayers.
Your standard is completely broken. You claim a father protecting his son is a unique historical crisis, but you completely ignore Trump’s ongoing threats to weaponize the constitution. Trump has already issued mass pardons to roughly 1,500 January 6th defendants, and behind closed doors, he has openly promised to pre-emptively pardon “everyone who has come within 200 feet of the Oval Office” before his term ends. Giving a blanket license to break the law to an entire political staff is a devastating attack on the rule of law, but you look the other way. Joe Biden changed his mind to save his family; Donald Trump uses the pardon power to insulate an entire political brand from legal accountability.
The U.S. Constitution grants the president an absolute, unchecked power to issue pardons,
The president, not some other administration person or relative operating an autopen. That is illegal and a crime. Biden was incapable and incoherent.
It is fools like you why our government is so corrupt.
Got any evidence someone else used the auto pen?
Using an auto pen to sign pardons is not illegal.
Guess you are part of the Biden support team that really think he was running this country!
“[Georgie], your fury over Turley’s column regarding Joe Biden reversing his campaign promise is a superficial complaint designed purely to feed your fellow bloggers’ with reasons to laugh at you even more.” DOes your shift-work boss know you spend so much time on this blog?
The one key piece of information that remains behind a firewall that would complete the story was Joe Biden’s financial records. No one dared question that omission. It would be interesting to know what happened with that 10% for the big guy.
How can a man whose brain has turned to pudding write a book? He’s effectively retarded.
Jill Biden’s book
Reading and comprehension. You need to brush up on both skills.
The penultimate sentence is: “Jill Biden’s book is scheduled to be followed by a book by Joe — just in time for the 2028 presidential campaigns.”
While I agree with your statement about pudding, I take issue with retarded. Perhaps a better words would be brain dead. He is far below the people with disabilities.
This woman was a grifter from the get-go, dumping her husband, shacking up with Joe.
I’d rather rewatch The Sixth Sense. At least that twist was worth sitting through the first time.
LOL so true OLLY.
I’m guessing they are out of money.
Over 50 years as a gridting politician he should have hidden money in every shady jurisdiction on the planet. He probably just forgot.
More likely they are out of other peoples money coming in. As you say, theirs is certainly squirreled away.
You should read the June 1974 Washingtonian magazine article, “Death and the All-American Boy”. It was written by Kitty Kelley following a set of interviews with the then-brand new Senator Joe Biden. Yes, Kelley acquired quite a reputation over the years, but no one has ever refuted what she wrote in this article, and because of it a decade passed before he would sit for any reporter interviews again. Kelley’s was the first interviews with Biden since his first wife’s tragic fatal car accident, and before he hooked up with Jill.
The Biden depicted in the article is one creepy individual, to say the least. It reported that his first wife had to restrain him from using his position for financial benefit (grift), but she was dead now and he talked about personal conflicts over what to do now that his beloved first wife was no longer there to hold him in check. We know that he long ago shook off her restraints, which may have still been ever-so-slightly holding him in check in 1974. The article is well worth reading it to help understand what kind of person he is and always was.
He might have forgotten to look in his other pocket, but she hasn’t. No, she’s just that greedy.
The money from influence buying and bribery quit rolling in Jan., 2025, so yeah they are out of money. Hunter can’t even sell his feces art for $10 bucks anymore let alone hundreds of thousands.