WASHINGTON (AP) – New First Lady Jill Biden took an unannounced detour to the Capitol on Friday to deliver baskets of chocolate chip cookies to members of the National Guard, thanking them “for protecting me and my family” during President’s inauguration Joe Biden.
“I just want to express my gratitude from President Biden and the entire Biden family,” she told a group of guards in the Capitol. “The White House baked you some chocolate chip cookies,” she said, before joking that she couldn’t say she baked them herself.
Joe Biden was sworn in on Wednesday, exactly two weeks after Donald Trump supporters revolted at the Capitol in a futile effort to stop Congress from certifying Biden as the winner of the November presidential election. Extensive security measures were then taken for the inauguration, without major incident.
Jill Biden told the group that her late son, Beau, was a member of the Delaware Army National Guard, who had been deployed in Iraq for a year in 2008-2009. Beau Biden died of brain cancer in 2015 at the age of 46.
So I’m a mother of the National Guard, she said, adding that the baskets were a ‘little thank you’ for leaving their home state and into the country’s capital. President Biden offered his thanks to the chief of the National Guard during a phone call Friday.
“I really appreciate everything you do,” said the first lady. “The National Guard will always have a special place at the heart of all Bidens.”
Jill Biden’s unannounced troop visit came after her first public outing as first lady.
She highlighted the services for cancer patients at Whitman-Walker Health, a Washington institution with a history of serving HIV / AIDS patients and the LGBTQ community. The clinic receives federal funding to provide primary care in disadvantaged areas.
The staff told the first lady that cancer screening had dropped since March last year as patients refused to come due to the coronavirus pandemic. More and more patients are taking advantage of the option to see a doctor online.
When the issue of universal broadband internet access came up, Jill Biden, a teacher, said she heard from teachers across the country who are unable to contact their students due to spotty access in some areas.
“We just have to work together and tackle some of these things,” she said. “The first thing we need to do is deal with this pandemic and get everyone vaccinated and back to work and back to their school to get things back to normal.”