The first lady said during the event in Nantucket, Massachusetts, that her husband has been constantly challenged by unforeseen crises while in office, blaming global problems. Biden’s statements came when the president’s job approval score stood at 33 percent, according to a recent poll by the New York Times and Siena College, which also noted that only 13 percent of Americans say the country is going in the right direction.
“[The President] I had so many hopes and plans for the things I wanted to do, but every time you turned around, I had to address the issues of the moment, ”Biden said, speaking to about two dozen attendees at a private home in the Popular Island Vacation The Massachusetts Coast
Biden also announced that he expects to meet next week with Olena Zelenska, the first lady of Ukraine, with whom he last met in May during an unannounced trip to Ukraine. He did not detail the agenda for his next meeting, and CNN has contacted the Biden office for more details. At the domestic level, Biden pointed to armed violence, the Supreme Court’s momentous decision on Roe against Wade, and the war in Ukraine as problems the president did not anticipate.
“So many things have been thrown at him,” he said. “Who would have ever thought of what happened [with the Supreme Court overturning] Roe against Wade? Well, maybe we saw it coming, but we still didn’t believe it. Armed violence in this country is absolutely appalling. We did not see the war coming to Ukraine. ”
Biden said she also felt limited in her role as first lady and had unexpectedly dragged herself in other directions since the course she initially intended.
“I was saying to myself, ‘Okay, I was a second lady. I worked in community colleges. I worked in military families. I’ve worked in cancer.’ They were supposed to be my areas of focus, but then when we arrived [in the White House,] I had to be, with everything that was happening, the first lady of the moment ”.
The first lady shared her frustration with the cancellation last month of Roe v. Wade, who ended the federal constitutional right to abortion. Biden added that while he supported the right to protest, angering the decision, he said, was not enough, contradicting the president’s statements last week, where he encouraged women to ” continue to protest, “and added that protesting is” critically important. ” “
Biden said he told his own family members they should think about doing more than protesting.
“So many young girls, including my grandchildren, went to the Supreme Court and left. I say, ‘Okay, good for you. But what will you do next? You feel good about yourself because you expressed your opinion, but what will you do next? What’s your plan? ‘”
The White House has acknowledged that the path to restore abortion rights is narrow and, at this time, indeterminate.
Biden also criticized Congress during his statements, blaming the administration’s stagnant agenda on Republicans. Joe Biden’s comprehensive Build Back Better plan, which would have expanded the nation’s social security network, received its final blow this week when West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a moderate Democrat, ruled out including any climate provision. or prosecutor in the bill. In a narrowly divided Senate, Democrats needed Manchin’s support to pass legislation along party lines in a process called budget reconciliation, which requires all 50 members of the Democratic caucus to agree to move the legislation forward.
“I know there are a lot of opponents who say they will shock us in the middle of the legislature. Okay. Republicans are working hard, staying together, for better or for worse. So we just have to work harder,” he said. .
Saturday’s event marked the DNC’s second fundraiser attended by the first lady during a two-day swing in Massachusetts. On Thursday, he made statements, focusing mainly on political action, at a private event in Andover.
CNN’s Jasmine Wright contributed to this report.