{"id":101285,"date":"2026-06-05T05:59:26","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T05:59:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/101285\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T05:59:26","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T05:59:26","slug":"jill-biden-details-tense-motorcade-moment-with-melania-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/101285\/","title":{"rendered":"Jill Biden Details Tense Motorcade Moment With Melania Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

The most uncomfortable ride of Jill Biden\u2019s White House career lasted just a few miles, featuring a stone-faced Melania Trump.<\/p>\n

In her new memoir, A View from the East Wing, the former first lady describes a frosty journey from the White House to the Capitol on Jan. 20, 2025, as Donald Trump prepared to take office for a second time. The details were relased by the Washington Post<\/a> and the Independent<\/a>, who obtained a copy of the book ahead of its release on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Biden said the encounter came after welcoming the Trumps to the White House for the traditional pre-inauguration tea before the two first ladies climbed into a motorcade bound for the U.S. Capitol.<\/p>\n

\"Former<\/p>\n

Former First Lady Jill Biden, former President Joe Biden, President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump stand together ahead of Trump’s inauguration. \/ Anna Moneymaker \/ Anna Moneymaker\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The former first lady suggested the tension stemmed in part from Melania\u2019s belief that President Joe Biden was personally responsible for the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago.<\/p>\n

\u201cMelania blamed Joe personally for the FBI searching through her private spaces at Mar-a-Lago,\u201d Biden wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have compassion for her, having been subject to the same kind of search. I knew how distressing it was to have agents rummage through your underwear drawer.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ride also included John Bessler, the husband of Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who had been enlisted by the inauguration committee as a conversational buffer between the incoming and outgoing first ladies.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know how long this has been tradition, but it certainly helps with the awkwardness,\u201d Biden wrote, joking that Bessler \u201cmust have drawn the shortest of all possible straws.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Melania<\/p>\n

Melania Trump and Jill Biden walk inside ahead of Inauguration ceremonies at the White House on January 20, 2025. \/ Andrew Harnik \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

Bessler attempted to keep the conversation flowing by asking Melania about her son Barron Trump\u2019s studies at New York University.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018NYU,\u2019 Melania said, looking out the window,\u201d Biden recalled.<\/p>\n

\u201cMelania kept trying to switch the topic to the weather.\u201d<\/p>\n

The motorcade anecdote is one of several new revelations in the memoir, which offers Biden\u2019s account of the tumultuous final months of her husband\u2019s presidency and the transition back to Trump, including her interactions with Melania.<\/p>\n

\"Dr.<\/p>\n

Dr. Jill Biden was a prominent figure in the Biden White House. \/ Elizabeth Frantz \/ REUTERS<\/p>\n

Biden said one of her few other moments with Melania came after the assassination attempt on Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, in 2024, when she called to check on her and Barron.<\/p>\n

Melania was \u201cpolite and controlled as ever,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

Biden also noted that Melania declined her invitation to the traditional inauguration tea in 2021 and did not extend the same courtesy when the Trumps returned to the White House in 2025.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere in the book, Biden describes her shock at seeing Trump\u2019s demolition of the White House East Wing to make way for a new ballroom.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe social offices, gutted. The military office, flattened. What had been my office, gone,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe innards of the East Wing were spread out for everyone to see, like a rare and precious animal that had been hunted down and killed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The White House Ballroom budget has ballooned from $300 million to a $1 billion spending proposal. \/ Ken Cedeno \/ Reuters<\/p>\n

The memoir has already drawn a furious response from Trump, who seized on Biden\u2019s account of her husband\u2019s disastrous 2024 debate performance.<\/p>\n

Trump mocked the former first lady on Truth Social<\/a> for writing of her fear that her husband was suffering a stroke on stage.<\/p>\n

\"Truth<\/p>\n

Truth Social \/ Donald Trump<\/p>\n

\u201cShe thought he was having a \u2018stroke,\u2019 and various other really bad things, and yet never rushed onto the stage to help her troubled husband, as any good wife would do,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Biden has continued to defend her husband in interviews promoting the memoir.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen all Americans saw that moment on TV at the debate, I mean, I was frightened out of my mind, because I thought, \u2018Oh my God, he\u2019s having a stroke,\u2019\u201d Biden said on The View on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

She said doctors assured her afterward that her husband was fine, but acknowledged she still has no explanation for what happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo this day, I still cannot say, like, what happened in that moment,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat happened? I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Daily Beast reached out to the White House and Biden for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The most uncomfortable ride of Jill Biden\u2019s White House career lasted just a few miles, featuring a stone-faced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":101286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[98,12,5267,13400,3461,52239,973,74,987],"class_list":["post-101285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-barron-trump","tag-barron-trump","tag-donald-trump","tag-east-wing","tag-jill-biden","tag-joe-biden","tag-john-bessler","tag-melania-trump","tag-trump","tag-white-house"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116695974933999676","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}