In the spring and early summer of 2024, President Donald Trump, then the Republican presidential nominee, held significant polling advantages over then-President Joe Biden.
Nonetheless, in hindsight, former first lady Jill Biden liked her husband’s chances in the 2024 election.
In a Tuesday interview, the former first lady told co-host Willie Geist of MS NOW’s “Morning Joe” that, in her view, Biden would have gone on to serve a second term had Democrats not forced him out of the race.
“I believe he would have beat Donald Trump in that election,” she said.
Geist, however, had not asked the former first lady’s opinion.
“Does he believe to this day that he would have defeated Donald Trump in that election?” Geist asked in a clip posted to the social media platform X.
At that point, the former first lady gave her response, speaking not for her husband but for herself.
Jill Biden: “I believe [Joe] would have beat Donald Trump in that election.”
Ok. pic.twitter.com/ielfUS5FAB
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) June 2, 2026
The former first lady appeared on “Morning Joe” to promote her new book, “View from the East Wing.”
In that book, she described her husband’s catastrophic June 2024 debate performance as shocking and uncharacteristic. She even recalled fearing that the then-president might be having a stroke on stage next to Trump.
Meanwhile, former staffers and other Democrat insiders have panned her account as revisionist and self-serving.
One former Biden official, in fact, compared her book to “107 Days,” the campaign memoir that former Vice President and 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris wrote in 2025.
“The throughline between her book and [Kamala] Harris’ is that they blame everyone but themselves for the loss,” the official said.
After the then-president’s alarming debate performance, Democratic leaders moved quickly to find a new candidate. This behind-the-scenes “coup” resulted in the selection of Harris, albeit without a primary vote.
Last month, the Democratic National Committee finally released its long-awaited “autopsy” report on the 2024 election. The report, unfinished and poorly sourced, embarrassed the DNC, which effectively disavowed it.
Nowhere in that report, however, did the DNC suggest that Democrats erred by jettisoning Biden as their candidate.
Indeed, by May and June of 2024, polling showed Trump holding comfortable leads over the then-president.
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