First Lady Pool Reports of February 20, 2024

FLOTUS Pool Report -- Connecticut

First Lady Jill Biden attended a political fundraiser for the Biden Victory Fund at a private home in Guilford, CT Tuesday while en route to Boston.

Biden spoke to a crowd of around 30 people at the home of local philanthropists Dr. Jerry Meyer and Roz Milstein Meyer. Attendees included a number of state and local officials, including Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont and Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz.

Biden, wearing a black floral dress, spoke in a living room with sweeping views of Long Island Sound at sunset. Alluding to both the scene and her career as a teacher, Biden quipped that she was likely to "get distracted like my students, looking out the window."

In a speech that lasted roughly 12 minutes, Biden touted several of her husband's accomplishments, including economic recovery from the pandemic, the successful nomination of Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, and passing "the boldest climate change law in American history."

Biden also echoed the president's rhetoric about the stakes of the election,

"Democracies don't always die at the end of a rifle," Biden said. "They can die slowly and subtly, you know, one freedom at a time, one right, one hope at a time."

The first lady also spoke in deeply personal terms about her young romance with then-Senator Biden, who was raising two boys following the death of his first wife, Neilia, in a car crash.

"A lot of people wrestle with the fact that maybe the love of their lives loved someone else first….some would let people, you know, have questions that would eat away at their peace of mind," Biden said. "But from the beginning, Joe made it clear that there was room in his heart for both of us."

Biden arrived at New Haven's Tweed Airport around 4:40 p.m.

She departed the event in Guilford around 5:25, and proceeded to Boston, where she is scheduled to speak Wednesday at a White House forum on women's health research.