PresidentJoe Biden’s inauguration last month “seemed so surreal,” according to First Lady Dr.Jill Biden, but a few moments stood out above the rest.
As the Bidens were formally introduced before the president’s swearing-in on Jan. 20, two marines opened the doors of the U.S. Capitol for them to walk out to the ceremony on the building’s west front. That’s when, Dr. Bidentells PEOPLE in this week’s cover story, “it hit me” that her husband was about totake the oathas the country’s 46th president.
“I could just feel this lump in my throat,” says the new first lady, 69. “And two of my grandkids said to me, ‘Nana, we saw that it hit you.’ I thought that was so funny, because I thought I was hiding it so well.”
Speaking with PEOPLE for their first White House interview, the Bidens recalled what the unprecedented inauguration — in the shadow of a deadly pandemic and the deadly U.S. Capitol attack — was like for both of them.
“This was maybe one of the most consequential inaugurations in a long, long time — not because I was being sworn in, but in the sense of what the state of the nation is, between everything from COVID to unemployment to racial inequality,” President Biden says. “We wanted to make sure that as many Americans could participate as possible, and it turns out millions of people watched it.”
“I thought it was really uplifting, just from the musical talent to the poet to Joe’s speech and what he had to say, to offer hope to all Americans,” Dr. Biden says.
Amanda Gorman, the national youth poet laureate who read a work written for the occasion, was a highlight: “I loved Amanda Gorman.”
• For more from Joe and Jill Biden’s first White House interview,subscribe now to PEOPLEor pick up this week’s issue, on newsstands Friday.
Celeste Sloman
The Bidens stepped into history “together,” Dr. Biden says, while the president agrees.
The president says the moment that sticks with him was his oath-taking, “looking at the chief [justice] and seeing out and Jill holding the Bible and our son and daughter standing there, and I could see behind them my grandchildren — and it just made me feel so proud that we were all part of history here.”
The Biden family celebrated the president’s swearing-in ceremony that night with a stripped-down version of the traditional festivities — such as a ball — due to theCOVID-19pandemic.
The evening finished withKaty Perrysinging “Firework” as actual fireworks exploded over Washington, D.C., with the Bidens looking on from the White House
Official White House Photo By Adam Schultz
The elder Beau was there for Inauguration Day, too, his dad believes.
“Jill’s going to warn me not to say this — because I sometimes get emotional, but I won’t — is that Beau was there, our son Beau, who was an incredible man and he was there in his namesake, his nephew Beauy,” the president says.
He adds, “I don’t know, it just seemed—”
“Complete,” Dr. Biden says.
(Nonetheless, President Biden notes with a laugh, “I can’t dance very well.")
All throughout Inauguration Day, Dr. Biden says, the “excitement was palpable,” even under the circumstances.
“It was still magical,” she says. “Really, the whole night was magical.”
And once it was over, reality began to sink in and their new lives began.
“It’s surreal, but it’s comfortable,” President Biden says of their return. “[I] spent a lot of time here in the cabinet room and in the Oval with the President [Barack Obama], but upstairs is new. It didn’t seem like that much was changing, including the Inauguration, until we walked through the door with our grandkids. It was like oh, I guess things have changed!”
source: people.com
