Just two weeks after taking up office, Joe and Jill Biden have graced their first magazine cover together as President and First Lady of the US.
Appearing for a joint interview with People magazine, the couple spoke about their marriage, their return to the White House and the unexpected furniture item they brought with them.
It is a bed set for the president's youngest grandchild, Beau Biden Jr, located upstairs in the family residence. The baby was born last year to Biden's son, Hunter, brother of Beau, who died of brain cancer in 2015 at age 46.
The president spoke candidly about his 43-year marriage, saying: “Jill came along at a really important point and put my family back together. She's the glue that held it together, and I knew that I wanted to marry her shortly after I met her … It's not that we don't fight and argue sometimes. I'm just lucky.”
The president also said the Senate must put former president Donald Trump on trial since the House had impeached him over last month's riot at the US Capitol, which left five people dead.
"Otherwise it makes a mockery of the system," Biden said in his first White House interview since his swearing-in as president on January 20.
A former senator himself, Biden has avoided saying whether or not he thinks the Senate should convict Trump, but he told People: "I'm not looking for retribution."
“My job is to try to heal the country and move us forward, because I think we have so many opportunities as a country,” he said in interview excerpts released on Wednesday, February 3.
Biden also once again pledged that no family member will work in the administration.
“We’re going to run this like the Obama-Biden administration,” he said. “No one in our family and extended family is going to be involved in any government undertaking or foreign policy. And nobody has an office in this place.”
Biden also told the magazine a story about rejecting the advice of an accountant who had told him years ago that he could bill the Senate for some of the fuel he pumped into the family car.
Biden said he told the accountant: “Here’s how I look at it: The foul line is 15 feet away from the basket. Never get me closer than 17 feet, because it really is a matter of the public trust.”
“And we need to rebuild that trust in government,” added Jill, who joined her husband for the interview featured in the magazine’s February 15 issue, which will hit newsstands across the US on Friday, days before Trump’s impeachment trial is set to open in the Senate.
Additional reporting from Associated Press
