The August cover of Vogue featuring Dr. Jill Biden was released online on Monday, four days after the big debate and sparking fresh criticism of her role as a fervent campaigner for her husband, who is on a nail-biting campaign for reelection.
For most of President Biden’s term, the First Lady has been largely uncontroversial. But as the campaign season heats up, things have begun to change. Laura Ingram of Fox News has argued that Dr. Biden’s desire for political power and fame is covering up his unfitness for the presidency. In the same vein, the right-wing website The Daily Caller has begun calling her “Lady McBiden.”
Dr. Biden took center stage after struggling to finish sentences during a disastrous debate with former President Donald J. Trump on Thursday. The New York Times later reported that Dr. Biden was the first person he turned to. “The message from the first lady was clear to him: They had been eliminated before, she had put everything on the line, and he — they — would stay in the race.”
On the Vogue cover, Dr. Biden wears a white Ralph Lauren tuxedo dress. She was photographed in the spring by Norman Jean Roy, who recently contributed portraits of Nicki Minaj, Alicia Keys, and White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre to Vogue. An accompanying profile of the first lady by Maya Singer describes her as “a vision of serenity even in the midst of utter dissonance.”
Dr. Biden has been on the cover of Vogue twice before. Tina Brown, a former editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, said being on the cover of Vogue is a “rite of passage” for the first lady. But Ms. Brown added that it is “always a risk” for Dr. Biden to appear on the cover of a fashion magazine. And at this moment, she added, a Vogue cover is “not particularly helpful.”
Shortly after the magazine posted the cover image on its Instagram account on Monday, the comments were overwhelmingly negative. Some came from Trump supporters who took advantage of Dr. Biden’s appearance to complain that Melania Trump was not on the Vogue cover when she was first lady. Other critical comments appeared to come from Democrats, one of whom claimed Dr. Biden was pursuing her and her husband’s ambitions “at the expense of the safety and well-being of the American people.”
The tagline, “We decide our future,” didn’t seem to help, regardless of what the first lady said about women voters at a campaign event in Minnesota in April.
“No!” wrote one commenter. “We decide your future! Your rights are over.”
Janice Min, formerly a senior editor at The Hollywood Reporter and Us Weekly and now editor-in-chief of Ankler Media, agreed.
“It’s not a good look for the president to refuse one-on-one interviews with the press while his wife graces her third Vogue cover during an election cycle that voters continue to say is about the economy,” said Ms. Min. “Are Vogue readers really the path to victory in Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada?”
Ms. Min also mentioned that Vogue's editor-in-chief was Anna Wintour, who hosted a private fundraiser for Mr. Biden's reelection.
“In an age where trust is suspect, when Donald Trump tells people the system is rigged and people believe him, I have to question the wisdom of speaking out in a publication edited by one of Joe Biden’s biggest fundraisers,” Ms. Min said.
“It’s no secret that Anna has supported Democratic campaigns for decades,” a spokesperson for Vogue and Ms. Wintour said in an email. “The August cover story is a reflection of Dr. Biden’s incredible accomplishments and the most pressing issues facing 2024 and beyond.” (The spokesperson did not directly respond to Ms. Wintour’s question about whether she thought Mr. Biden should withdraw from the race.)
Vogue reached out to the first lady after the debate. At the top of the article on Vogue’s website, there’s an update that Dr. Biden spoke to the magazine on Sunday at Camp David. She said the Biden campaign “will not let those 90 minutes define his four years as president. We will keep fighting.” Dr. Biden added that her husband “will always do what’s best for the country.”
Some who read the piece on Monday thought Dr. Biden might be evasive about her husband’s decision to stay in the race. Cindy Berger, chief executive of R&CPMK, one of the entertainment industry’s largest public relations and crisis management firms, noted that Dr. Biden could have said, “The idea that he’s dropping out is ridiculous. We’re here to win and we’ll see the voters at the polls in November,” but he didn’t. Instead, Ms. Berger noted, Dr. Biden said the couple “will continue to fight.”
“There is a chance, I think,” said Ms. Berger, a Democrat. She called Mr. Biden “an extraordinary and remarkable president,” but said she thought it was “the right thing” for him to step down.
First Lady Elizabeth Alexander's communications director did not respond to a question about whether there was room for flexibility in Vogue's quote.
Mrs. Brown said she didn't take the quote too seriously. “She's totally on board with it, and I don't think there's any chance she'll ever advise him to step down,” she said in a text. “She'd love to be the queen that Obama's arrogant circle has been waiting for!”