The 2024 Democratic National Convention (DNC) is officially underway. Held at the United Center in Chicago from August 19 to 22, the ongoing four-day event hosts thousands of delegates to approve a party platform and for Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to formally accept their nomination in the 2024 presidential election.

The DNC has so far featured memorable remarks by President Joe Biden, First Lady Dr. Jill Biden, and, most recently, former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama—with more to come from the nominees in its final days. The 2024 DNC has also seen its fair share of meaningful fashion moments, helping to elevate powerful speeches of voter advocacy and discussions about the Democratic Party campaign. After all, fashion has always played a strategic yet significant role in politics, down to the silhouette, color, and choice of designer.

Vice President Harris kicked off the first day of the DNC wearing a tan two-piece suit by Chloé. Though simple at first glance, Harris's choice was an intentional one. Her Chloé ensemble, technically coming in the shade "coconut brown," paid homage to her viral and meme-able words from May 2023 (“You think you just fell out of a coconut tree? You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.”) It was also a nod to Barack Obama's controversial 2014 look. The then-president wore a similarly-colored suit. At the time, the colorway was considered too controversial for office.

The fashion carried on well into the second day. Former First Lady Michelle Obama took to the stage in a modern version of the traditional First Lady attire. With cues inspired by Hillary Clinton, she conveyed her message of hope with a sleeveless, criss-cross set by Monse. Obama has a long-standing connection with the label's creative directors, Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia, who were previously at Oscar de La Renta—a label she often wore during her time as First Lady.

Sartorial statements at the DNC continued off the stage, down to the First and Second Daughters in the crowd. Ashley Biden attended the event wearing a suffragette-inspired white Gabriela Hearst suit, while Kamala Harris's step-daughter Ella Emhoff channeled an all-white look featuring a Helmut Lang top and the buzzy Harris-Walz camouflage baseball cap.

Other noteworthy looks at the DNC included First Lady Dr. Jill Biden's shimmery Ralph Lauren dress, Hillary Clinton's white number, Patti Labelle's lace-embellished coat, and many more. With the Democratic National Convention running until Thursday, check out a roundup of the best (and most meaningful) fashion moments from the event, with more to come.

Mindy Kaling in Monique Lhuillier

Mindy Kaling's DNC appearance included a navy lace sheath dress by Monique Lhuillier and crystal-embellished heels.

Oprah Winfrey in custom Christian Siriano

Oprah Winfrey wore a violet blazer with coordinating wide-leg trousers custom-made by Christian Siriano. In addition to a call out of support to "childless cat ladies," Winfrey's DNC speech revealed she's a “registered Independent,” adding another level of symbolism to her purple look when you blend Republican-red with Democrat-blue.

Michelle Obama's Monse Pantsuit

Former First Lady Michelle Obama attended Day 2 of the Democratic National Convention in a black, criss-cross top and cropped pants from Monse. She also wore black Jimmy Choo pumps.

Patti Labelle's Black Lace Coat

On Day 2, Patti LaBelle performed during the "In Memorium" segment. The singer wore a thigh-hitting white coat embellished with black lace, paired with black pants.

Ella Emhoff's Thom Browne Suit

Kamala Harris's stepdaughter, Ella Emhoff, wore a Thom Browne suit on Day 2. Her sleeves were adorned with red, white, and blue stripes, symbolizing the American flag.

Ella Emhoff in Helmut Lang

On the first day of the DNC, Ella Emhoff wore an all-white look, featuring a Helmut Lang top and straight trousers. She also wore a camo Harris-Walz baseball cap (not pictured here).

Kamala Harris in Chloé

Vice President Kamala Harris took to the stage on Day 1 in a tan two-piece suit by Chloé. The "coconut brown" look paid homage to her viral words in 2023 and then-President Barack Obama's 2014 suit of a similar color.

Jill Biden in Ralph Lauren

First Lady Dr. Jill Biden wore a blue Ralph Lauren dress on Day 2, showcasing her evergreen support of American designers.

Jill Biden in a Lilac Blazer

While arriving at the DNC on Day 1, Jill Biden wore a lavender and white suit by Ralph Lauren.

Peggy Flanagan in a Look By Indigenous Designer Jamie Okuma

On Day 1, Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota Peggy Flanagan wore a black-and-white geometric dress by the Indigenous designer Jamie Okuma, a tribute to Flanagan's Native American roots.

Hillary Clinton in a White Suit

Former Secretary Hillary Clinton stepped out on Day 1 in a white suit, the colorway subtly nodding to the 19th-century women's suffrage movement.

Gwen Walz in Carolina Herrera

Gwen Walz, right of Tim Walz, wore a floral Carolina Herrera dress on Day 1.

Ashley Biden in a Crisp White Suit

First Daughter Ashley Biden wore a white Gabriela Hearst suit on Day 1.

Mickey Guyton in Rebecca Vallance

Singer Mickey Guyton performed on the first day of the DNC, wearing a floral white gown by Rebecca Vallance.

Marcia Fudge in Black and White Florals

On Day 1, former US Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Marcia Fudge wore a black leather jacket covered in white flowers, known as a symbol of joy and hope.

President Joe Biden announced on Sunday that he was dropping out of the presidential race, and endorsing his vice-president Kamala Harris to replace him as the Democratic candidate for election in November.

Immediately after his historic announcement—which was made following weeks of pressure from fellow democrats who were concerned about Biden's fitness for office—celebrities came out in droves to express their feelings about the situation. Here's what they said.

Shonda Rhimes

The Grey's Anatomy producer shared a photo of President Biden on Instagram, writing, "Thank you for your extraordinary career of public service, @joebiden"

Julia Louis-Dreyfus

The Veep actress wrote on Instagram, "Thank you, President Biden, for your service and for your extraordinary leadership and for your love of this country and all its people."

Spike Lee

The BlacKkKlansman director wrote on Instagram alongside a portrait of Harris, "ONCE AGAIN A SISTA COMES TO DA RESCUE."

Lizzo

The "About Damn Time" singer shared a screenshot from a New York Times article reporting on the Biden news and wrote, "We are truly living in unprecedented times."

Cardi B

The "I Like It" singer had shared her thoughts following the disastrous debate between Biden and Donald Trump a few weeks ago, calling the president "selfish" for not dropping out and passing the baton to Harris in a social media video. She reposted the clip on X, writing, "AHAHAHAHA LETS GOOOOO I TOLD YALLL KAMALA WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THE 2024 candidate…..STOP FCKIN PLAYIN WITH ME !!!!!!!"

Barbra Streisand

The Funny Girl star said on X, "Joe Biden will go down in history as a man who accomplished significant achievements in his 4 year term. We should be grateful for his upholding of our democracy."

FINNEAS

The musician shared a photo of himself with sister Billie Eilish and President Biden on Instagram with the caption, "I see a person putting the people before themselves and their pride today and for that, I have an enormous amount of respect."

Yvette Nicole Brown

The Community actress said on X, "Be forewarned, if you pop in here w/anything but “Let’s go! #TeamHarris!” I’m blocking you on sight.

"The need for us to show up & #VoteBlueUpAndDownTheBallot has not changed.

"Only the name on the top of our ticket has.

"Good vibes only.

"Let’s Go!x"

Jamie Lee Curtis

The Freaky Friday actress said on Instagram, "I support wholeheartedly @joebiden and his decision to step down and to endorse unreservedly @kamalaharris

"SHE IS TRUSTED AND TESTED and she is a fierce advocate for women's rights and people of color and her message is one of HOPE and UNITY for America at her time of great national divide."

Christie Brinkley

The supermodel shared Biden's statement on Instagram Stories and wrote simply, "Thank you @joebiden"

Mindy Kaling

The Office actress wrote alongside a photo of herself meeting Biden, "Thank you Mr. President."

Jon Stewart

The Daily Show host kept things simple, writing on X, "Legend."

Demi Lovato

On their Instagram Stories, the "Confident" singer shared a link to donate to the Democratic Party, and a photo of themself meeting Harris.

Ariana Grande

The "thank u next" singer shared a photo of President Biden and Vice-President Harris and a link to register to vote.

Others who praised Biden's withdrawal include John Legend, Jimmy Kimmel, Robert DeNiro, Ellen DeGeneres, and of course, President Barack Obama, for whom Biden served as vice-president between 2008 and 2016.

In a history-making decision, President Joe Biden has dropped out of the 2024 race.

Following weeks of Democratic agitation after Biden's notably weak debate performance on June 27, the president announced the news via a letter addressed to "My Fellow Americans." In the letter, he outlined what he considered the biggest successes of his presidency before announcing that he would be stepping aside as the presumptive Democratic nominee.

"It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President. And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term," he wrote.

In a follow-up post, Biden threw his support behind Kamala Harris being the Democratic nominee. Harris would run against former president Donald Trump, who formally accepted his party's nomination at the Republican National Convention last week.

"My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. And it’s been the best decision I’ve made. Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year."

In an allusion to the past weeks, in which Democratic pundits and politicians alike had called for Biden to step aside, the president finished the letter by noting, "Democrats—it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this."

Wrestling legend and actor Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is weighing in on the upcoming presidential election... sort of.

During a recent interview with Fox News, the WWE superstar said that he regrets endorsing then-presidential candidate Joe Biden in the 2020 election, and will not be making a public endorsement of any candidate in the upcoming 2024 presidential race.

"The endorsement that I made years ago with Biden was one I thought was the best decision for me at the time. Am I going to do that again this year? That answer is no," Johnson, who identifies politically as an Independent, said. "I’m not going to do that. Because what I realized.. what that caused back then was something that tears me up in my guts, back then and now, which is division. And that got me."

The actor and businessman went on to lament the woes of so-called "woke" and "cancel" culture, saying that "to be real and to be direct and to be open and to be transparent... that's important to me."

"In today's easy cancel culture world and cancel culture, woke culture, this culture, that culture division, etc., that really bugs me," he continued.

In 2020, The Rock made his first public endorsement of any presidential and vice presidential candidate in his storied career during a Zoom discussion with now-President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

"So I figured, let’s kick this conversation off this way by me officially publicly endorsing you both to become president and vice president of our great country," he said to the candidates at the time.

"That’s fantastic, thank you," Harris responded.

"It means a great deal, for real," Biden addd.

"You guys are both obviously experienced to lead, you’ve done great things," Johnson continued. "Joe, you’ve had such an incredible career. You’ve led, in my opinion, with great compassion and heart and drive... but also soul."

In the same Fox News interview, Johnson said that "you either succumb and be what you think other people want you to be, or you go: 'No, that's not who I am. I'm going to be myself and I'm going to be real.'"

"If you ask me something, a real answer is important, and the truthful answer is important, and that may get people upset and may p*** people off," he continued. "And that's OK. But it took me some time to recognize that.

"Am I happy with the state of America right now? Well, that answer's no," he added. "Do I believe we're going to get better? I believe in that. I'm an optimistic guy, and I believe we can get better."

Are Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce a PR stunt for Joe Biden's political campaign? Seth Meyers is here to find out.

Incredible, some far-right influencers have suggested that Kelce and Swift were set up by Biden's team to gather public approval, leading up to an eventual endorsement from Miss Americana herself. They even feel that Kelce's team, the Kansas City Chiefs, winning the 2024 Super Bowl was a part of this plan.

Well, someone decided to finally ask the man himself. Biden was out on the campaign trail Monday and sat down for an interview with Seth Meyers.

At one point, Meyers revealed that 18 percent of Americans believe he is working in "cahoots" with Swift to reelect him in the 2024 presidential race against the Republican nominee, which may be Donald Trump.

"Now, can you confirm or deny that there is an active conspiracy here between you and Ms. Swift?" Meyers asked.

Biden seemed aware of the theory, as he immediately went along with the joke and replied, "Where are you getting this information? It's classified. But I will tell you she did endorse me in 2020."

Indeed, back in 2020, Swift made one of her rare political posts to declare that she would be voting for Biden; she even posted custom cookies that read "Biden 2020."

And this was without a huge publicity stunt coupling her with America's beloved tight end. Back then, Swift was still dating actor Joe Alwyn.

Swift has not endorsed Biden yet for this election, although she continues to urge her fans to register to vote. She has also spoken out against the recent abortion laws.

Meyers asked Biden if he believes Swift will support him this time around, and Biden wouldn't budge on his former answer.

"I told you. It's classified," he repeated.

Well, Mariah Carey might just keep waiting under the mistletoe this Christmas, as she won't find Bryan Tanaka under it.

The Queen of Christmas and her former backup dancer have reportedly called it quits after seven years together. Sources close to the pair told Page Six that it was due to their age gap of 14 years (Carey is 54 and Tanaka is 40), and that he wants children.

Carey shares 12-year-old twins Moroccan and Monroe with her ex-husband, Nick Cannon, and apparently does not want any more kids. Tanaka, on the other hand, does not have any children of his own.

Rumors started swirling about Carey's relationship status when she was spotted on her annual trip to Aspen alone. Tanaka was also missing from her "Merry Christmas One and All!" tour that started in November.

Carey had also been seemingly hinting about the split, as she told People earlier this month that it's been a difficult year. "I’ve been looking forward to this Christmas for, like, the whole year," she said. "Since last year—because last year wasn’t the greatest."

It sounds like things have been rough since Carey was thawed out of her ice cube in time to celebrate Christmas with her chart-topping hit, but her luck might be changing, as she had a very special invitation last week...

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were lucky enough to meet the "All I Want For Christmas" singer. Carey journeyed to the White House to spread some festive cheer (and, who knows, meet some single politicians maybe?).

She brought her twins, and they took several photos in the Oval Office, all of which were shared on the singer's Instagram.

Carey also posed with what might be the largest Christmas tree ever found indoors. She was photographed adding a decoration to the heavily loaded tree.

The Queen of Christmas wore a black glittery dress with a matching jacket, complete with a sugary pink and white lining. The gorgeous look was finished off with matching pink heels and glittering jewelry.

Multiple outlets report today that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle asked to ride back to the United States with President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden following Queen Elizabeth’s funeral last September but were turned down.

Sources told The Daily Mail that it was an immediate no from the White House, adding that the request was a “non-starter.”

“It would have caused such a commotion,” a source said. “It would have strained relations with the Palace and the new king,” referring, of course, to King Charles.

The Bidens were two of many dignitaries present for Her late Majesty’s funeral last September 19. They were also in attendance at a reception for global leaders and foreign royals hosted by King Charles the day prior.

Harry and Meghan had coincidentally been in the U.K. taking part in charity engagements when the Queen’s health took a turn for the worse, ultimately leading to her passing on September 8 at the age of 96. When it came time to return to the U.S. after the funeral, Harry and Meghan’s staff “reached out to the White House to ask if the couple could get a ride back to the United States on Air Force One,” noting it would have been a “grand photo opportunity.”

The U.S. government pays for officials to travel aboard Air Force One, and President Biden personally pays for his family members to fly on the plane. Had Harry and Meghan been granted permission to fly aboard the plane, it was unclear who would foot the bill.

The couple have a longstanding relationship with the Bidens; Jill Biden attended Harry’s Invictus Games as far back as 2017, alongside her husband and then President Barack Obama. However, when she was invited to the 2022 Games, she was advised not to attend, per Page Six. 

“British officials, in a working level conversation, conveyed to National Security Council staff that they thought the idea would land badly,” a source told The Daily Mail. Instead, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg and his husband Chasten led the U.S. delegation.

OK reports that First Lady Biden wanted to attend, and that she and Harry have a warm relationship, bonding over the Warrior Games. In September 2021, the two hosted a Zoom call after that year’s Games were canceled because of the pandemic. Both had warm comments to say about the other, with Harry telling Dr. Biden “Thank you for your service and your continued support over all these years. It’s been fantastic to see you in action in various parts of the world giving everything that you’ve got to so many people—not just those who wear the uniform but to the families, as well. A lot of them wouldn’t be here without you, so thank you.” 

Dr. Biden returned the kindness, telling Harry “You live by a simple principle: Serve together, recover together. It’s a philosophy not limited by the flag you wear. Your brothers- and sisters-in-arms are connected by something so much deeper than the borders that separate us. You’ve dedicated your time, talents, and heart to lifting up service members from around the globe.”

Per The Daily Mail, Dr. Biden also apparently showed a sign of support for Harry and Meghan after their 2021 bombshell sit-down with Oprah Winfrey. “The day after the interview aired, Jill Biden wore an Oscar de la Renta dress with a lemon pattern to the State Department’s International Women of Courage Awards,” the outlet reports. “It was similar to an Oscar de la Renta dress Meghan had worn a month before. Twitter saw Jill’s outfit as a subtle nod of support to Team Sussex.” So did Meghan, apparently, who sent the First Lady a basket of lemons to say thank you. 

President Biden and King Charles met earlier this month at Windsor Castle—their first formal meeting since the King’s Coronation in May. During the meeting, President Biden was accused of breaking royal protocol when he was spotted placing his hand on the King’s back, but The Independent reports that Charles didn’t mind, with a source saying Charles was “entirely comfortable” with the gesture. “What a wonderful symbol of warmth and affection it was between both the individuals and their nations,” a source said.

Harry and Meghan have called the U.S. home since early 2020, residing in California; Harry’s brother, Prince William, will himself be stateside in September to appear at the Earthshot Prize Innovation Summit in New York City, which he was due to attend at the same time last year, but was forced to cancel after the late Queen’s death.

The coronation of King Charles III has drawn scores of politicians, celebrities, and royals from around the world to the opulent ceremony at Westminster Abbey, but one notable face will be absent amid all the celebration: that of American President Joe Biden, who sent his wife, First Lady Jill Biden, and his granddaughter, Finnegan Biden, in his place. 

"It is not a snub," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre assured Time magazine. Rather, the president explained that he has to attend to previous commitments. He spoke to the king in a 25-minute phone call in April which, the White House said, "underscor[ed] the strength of the relationship between our countries and the friendship between our peoples." During the call, he also explained that the First Lady would be taking his place. 

Still, the president's decision has political significance and keeps in line with American tradition: No U.S. president has ever attended the coronation of a British Monarch. Even when President Dwight D. Eisenhower was invited to Queen Elizabeth's ceremony in 1953, he, too, politely declined and opted to send a delegation on his behalf instead. 

Furthermore, President Biden has historically expressed skepticism over Britain's imperial history—particularly in the case of its brutal colonization of Ireland, where Biden traces the majority of his ancestral roots. 

Nevertheless, the bond between King Charles III and President Biden remains strong—the two have spoken multiple times over the course of the latter's presidency, including in the wake of Queen Elizabeth II's passing, when the president expressed his deep condolences. 

The First Lady has also made the most of her visit to London in terms of strengthening the bond between the U.K. and U.S. She has already met with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's wife, Akshata Murty, and the two attended a number of events together, including a visit to the Charles Dickens Primary School in central London. 

There will be roughly 2,000 guests at King Charles slimmed-down Coronation on May 6—only about a quarter of the guests in attendance at his mother Queen Elizabeth’s Coronation in 1953, but still a lot of people. That said, there are three people who notably will not be at the ceremony at Westminster Abbey: Two who were invited but declined, and one who was not invited at all.

U.S. President Joe Biden—who, along with his wife, First Lady Dr. Jill Biden, attended Her late Majesty’s funeral last September—was invited to the Coronation, but will reportedly not be in attendance, instead opting to send a delegation in his place consisting of the First Lady. This is not a snub, as some have made it out to be—for historical reference, at the last Coronation in 1953, Dwight Eisenhower was president and he too did not attend the Coronation. He sent a delegation of four high-ranking officials in his place, so it seems almost more personal that Biden is sending his wife in his stead. The Telegraph reported that Biden was missing the event because of scheduling conflicts. 

“You have to bear in mind that, when an American president goes anywhere, with him comes an entire circus,” royal expert Victoria Arbiter tells Marie Claire exclusively. “There are security personnel and a lot of people that travel with the president. We expect to see the U.S. delegation being led by Dr. Jill Biden, and that speaks to the respect the Bidens do have for the royal family. They could have sent a U.S. ambassador but sending the First Lady says a lot about how the Bidens view the royal family.”

This decision is in line with previous U.S. policy, Christopher Andersen, author of The King: The Life of Charles III, tells Marie Claire exclusively. “No American president has ever attended a Coronation,” he says. “Not that Joe Biden seems wedded to precedent—last year he became the first U.S. president ever to attend a British state funeral.”

Also notably, the King’s daughter-in-law Meghan Markle has opted not to attend, choosing instead to stay behind in California with her and husband Prince Harry’s two children, Princess Lilibet and Prince Archie, whose fourth birthday happens to fall on the day of the Coronation.

“I’m personally not surprised the Duchess of Sussex declined,” Arbiter says. “Archie’s birthday would put any parent in a difficult position, but the Platinum Jubilee was over Lili’s birthday weekend, and they did manage to do both. It’s a little bit of a convenient excuse to use. It’s a shame she doesn’t feel safe and secure enough or confident enough to attend the Coronation.” And, while Arbiter says she is sad but not surprised that Meghan isn’t going, she feels Harry has made the right decision in choosing to attend: “Harry is taking the mature approach in this instance,” she says. “Looking ahead to the future, in five, 10, or 15 years, he’d regret not going to the Coronation.”

Not invited to the Coronation was the King’s former sister-in-law Sarah Ferguson, ex-wife of his brother Prince Andrew. (Andrew was invited and is expected to attend, as are Andrew and Ferguson’s daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie.) Though the two have been divorced since 1996, they still live together (albeit in the large Royal Lodge), and Ferguson spends holidays like Christmas and Easter with the royal family. Instead of attending the ceremony at the Abbey, Ferguson told ITV she will spend May 6 “having a little tearoom and Coronation chicken sandwich and putting out the bunting, that’s what I’m going to be doing,” she said. “Because that would make me very happy. I also love to watch it on the telly because you hear a lot on the telly. The commentators are always so good. And then all the family come back.” 

Ferguson seemingly understood her lack of invitation, telling ITV “Remember, I am divorced from him [Andrew],” she said. “I don’t expect—you can’t have it both ways. You can’t be divorced and then say, ‘I want this.’ You’re in or you’re out.” Of the King and Queen, she said in March “I’m very supportive of the King and the Queen Consort, and I really am glad to do whatever it takes to support them on their road ahead.”

For her part, Rachel Bowie, cohost of Royally Obsessed, a Gallery Media Group podcast, tells Marie Claire that Ferguson “is such a big part of the family, I assumed she would have been a part of the Coronation,” she says. “I thought they would make space for Fergie.”

Because of the guest list’s slimmed down nature, Bowie’s cohost Roberta Fiorito says that, instead of folks turning down invitations to the Coronation, like Ferguson, the opposite is happening: “A lot of people weren’t invited who wished they were,” she says. “The aristocracy is up in arms a little about it.” Instead of maybe a Coronation’s more traditional guest list, Fiorito says, the King made a point to include representatives of many of the charities and causes he’s worked with throughout the years.

And, more notable than who isn’t coming is who will be there, Arbiter says. There will be many fellow European royals there whose families may have never attended a Coronation before, a nod to the fact that the King is close friends with many of them and is related to some as well. The King has also invited individuals who may have been outspoken in the past about their dislike or disdain for the monarchy but will be in attendance and pledge their allegiance to the King while there. “It’s more remarkable who is going,” Arbiter says. Inviting those who may have spoken out against the monarchy in the past is “an incredibly mature and responsible approach by the King,” she says. “It also shows his desire to follow in his mother’s footsteps and extend the hand of friendship. It’s all about unity.” 

If you're currently outside the U.K., you can use a VPN like ExpressVPN—which has a 30-day free trial—to watch the coronation live on the BBC, which aired Queen Elizabeth II's coronation in 1953.

May 6 will mark the first time a Coronation has been held for a British monarch in 70 years, since Queen Elizabeth II’s own Coronation in June 1953—and, it seems, U.S. President Joe Biden is not planning to attend the historic event.

The Telegraph reports, per People, that Biden “is not expected” to attend King Charles’ ceremony at Westminster Abbey in London because of scheduling conflicts and will send a delegation in his place—though the outlet did note that Biden’s May schedule has not yet been finalized. If he opts not to attend, Biden will likely send another high-profile delegate in his place, like his wife, First Lady Dr. Jill Biden.

Despite this potential snub, sources close to Biden tell The Telegraph that the president’s relationship with Charles remains “strong.” The source also said there “may still be some efforts underway to see if Biden can be persuaded to come to the Coronation.” A second source said his plans were “not locked and loaded” and he was still “technically in play.”

Roughly a month ago, a White House source told Time that Charles’ Coronation “does not feel like an event Joe Biden will attend,” despite his attendance at Queen Elizabeth’s funeral last September. Biden will be in Ireland in April for a five-day trip to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Good Friday peace accord, which was negotiated in part by the U.S. The Mirror reports that Biden might link up with Charles during his visit to Northern Ireland on April 11 instead of attending the May 6 event.

“It seems pretty remiss, and I’m tempted to say more fool him for not coming,” said Bob Seely, Conservative MP and member of the foreign affairs select committee. “This is a once in a lifetime event, and you would have thought he should come because he’s a head of state. It just seems to be a foolish decision.”

And, for historical context, at the last Coronation in 1953, Dwight Eisenhower was president, and he did not attend Queen Elizabeth’s Coronation himself—instead sending four high-ranking officials in his place: George C. Marshall, Omar N. Bradley, Earl Warren, and Fleur F. Cowles.

“Whilst we’d hope Joe Biden would be invited, there is no historical protocol for a U.S. president to attend royal Coronations, so we should not read too much into any absence,” said Tobias Ellwood, chairman of the defense select committee. “America will be represented, and it will be telling who the president chooses to send.”

Meanwhile, still no official word on another U.S. delegation we're curious about: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. The RSVP deadline for the Coronation is reportedly tomorrow.

The U.S. is the only wealthy nation that does not guarantee its citizens paid leave. This cold fact inspired organizations and founding director Dawn Huckelbridge—who previously worked at organizations like Supermajority, Planned Parenthood and People for the American Way—to launch Paid Leave for All Action in 2019. The action arm of Paid Leave for All unites organizations fighting for the 75 percent of Americans who do not have access to paid leave through an employer. Here, Huckelbridge outlines what we need to know about the state of paid leave and President Biden's plan to fund it.

Last week, President Biden unveiled his $6.8 trillion budget plan for the coming 2024 fiscal year, and in it, the strongest budget proposal for a federal paid family and medical leave program in history. 

To hearken back to one of Biden’s sayings, this is a "BFD."

The White House is calling it a “blueprint to invest in America, lower costs for families, protect and strengthen Medicare and Social Security, and reduce the deficit by making the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share.” It follows on the agenda that the President detailed in his State of the Union in February, where he also affirmed his commitment to paid leave. The proposal includes a $325 billion commitment to a comprehensive, permanent paid family and medical leave program. The program would provide up to 12 weeks of paid leave to cover you or a loved one’s serious health need and bonding with a new child, as well as leave for military deployment, safe leave from sexual or domestic violence, and leave for bereavement. 

This isn’t the first time the President has advocated for paid leave. It was in his previous budgets and a central part of his economic agenda, included in his original “Build Back Better” plan, the President’s core legislative framework in the first year of his administration. That legislation was later split off into separate bills and the family care components were lost in negotiations. There was overwhelming support for paid leave and an outcry when it was cut. We did in fact pass paid family and medical leave in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2021, and it was only one vote short had it moved to the Senate at that time. And now, as another election cycle begins, advocates and voters are confirming that paid leave is at the top of the agenda of must-pass legislation.

What’s so important about all this? 

Today the United States remains one of only six countries in the world that guarantees no form of paid leave for its workers. This means that:

• 3 in 4 working people do not have paid family leave through their jobs.
• 1 in 4 women have returned to work within two weeks of giving birth, while their bodies are not yet healed and their newborns are perhaps not even able to lift their heads yet. 
• 61 percent of people caring for an aging loved one, or a loved one with a disability or medical condition, are doing this while working and without support.

Under these conditions, the gender and racial inequities persist, and grow. On a personal level, in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, we are missing our parents’ last breaths, our babies’ first smiles, our own treatments and recovery. 

And it means that our public health suffers, our economy loses, and all of our families take the hit.

The budget, like all presidential budgets, is not expected to get through Congress intact. It’s on Congress and its budget committees to develop a budget resolution.  GOP lawmakers will likely reject the President’s blueprint for federal spending, as they have in the past. There has already been pushback on what some Congressional Republicans have called “woke” or “reckless spending.” Regardless of your political affiliation, there is near unanimous consent among voters that paid family and medical leave is not reckless, but necessary and urgent. In fact, working families lose over $22 billion every year because of our country’s failure to secure it. And passing paid leave with other care policies would actually yield millions of jobs, billions in wages, and trillions in GDP. It’s a boost to bottom lines and a boon to business, especially small business—and two-thirds of small business owners agree and want a national paid leave program to retain their workers and help them compete. 

Regardless of the final budget resolution, the President’s budget proposal remains an important document that reflects the administration’s policy priorities, values—and likely their campaign plan. 

Paid Leave for All Action did polling in midterm battleground states that found 81 percent of voters support paid leave—which was also a double-digit increase in the last year. Paid leave is popular with a majority of voters in all political parties, and especially popular with independent women voters. Paid leave is a hugely impactful policy, a proven tool for our health, our financial security, and our families’ wellbeing. And it’s key to electoral outcomes.

Why this can, and must, all change. 

The federal budget and the President’s proposal are just parts of how government programs are funded and work. We need legislation to move again for paid leave’s passage, and we need the votes in both chambers of Congress. But paid leave was right at the finish line and we believe this momentum and mandate will only grow. In just the first months of this year, we’ve already seen unprecedented energy and action. A historic bipartisan working group launched for the first time in the House of Representatives, as well as a Congressional Dads Caucus focused on passing paid leave. Paid leave legislation will be reintroduced again soon. The President and Vice President have taken executive actions and committed to a renewed push. We represent tens of millions of people and voters across the country, and every day more organizers, advocates, small business owners, and working families join us across the country. The movement is stronger than ever. And as a movement, alongside the President and the growing number of champions in Congress, we plan to finish the job.

Editor's note: February 14 might be Valentine's Day, but for some, "Loving Day" on June 12 may serve as a more meaningful day to celebrate the concept of lifelong union. Loving Day marks the historic Loving v. Virginia ruling, which deemed a Virginia law prohibiting mixed-race marriage unconstitutional, and legalized interracial marriage in every state.

Fast forward to September of last year: Wedding planning company Zola placed a full-page ad in The Washington Post inviting the Senate to "the wedding event of the year" with a message that urges the vote to safeguard marriages for same-sex as well as interracial couples. That December, Congress passed the Respect for Marriage Act, which President Biden signed into law. The bill protects the rights of married same-sex and interracial couples to have their marriage legally recognized and protected by federal and state law, regardless of the state's view on marriage. It ensures these couples can access the basic benefits of being married—like survivor benefits, citizenship rights, adoption eligibility, and so much more.

But in this op-ed, Zola co-CEO and cofounder Shan-Lyn Ma says there's still much to do at the state level (more than 30 states still have gay marriage bans). In this op-ed, she calls on government officials to take a stand and protect marriage equality alongside the private sector, from wedding venues to photographers, web designers, and more.

It's safe to say 2022 was the year of the wedding. I’ll never forget watching my cousin and her partner combine their Scottish and Singaporean heritage with a handfasting ceremony. Or ending the year celebrating the engagement of two of my closest friends, Michael and George. 

It was the year when nationwide, over 2.5 million couples decided to marry each other, the highest number since 1984. A wedding boom year born out of the backlog of weddings that had built up over 2020 when COVID put wedding dreams on hold. It was like all of a sudden people wanted to celebrate their love and get on with their lives and do it in front of 150 friends and family members. Because nothing brings people together like weddings. 

2022 was also the year when the Supreme Court called marriage equality into question in the same decision in which they overturned Roe v. Wade, reviving feelings of fear and doubt that progress affirmed only seven years earlier, by the Court itself, would be rolled back. It was the year my team at Zola received an email from a same-sex couple planning a wedding which read: “We’re really doing this because we’re scared the Supreme Court will take away our right to marry before we get a chance to do so.” This is just one example of how we’ve seen firsthand this devastating and divisive year of politics have an impact on LGBTQ+ couples during their wedding planning process. 

Now, the court is hearing arguments in the case of 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, in which one website designer, Lorie Smith, is seeking exception from Colorado’s anti-discrimination law because she doesn’t want to create websites for same-sex weddings. How on earth are we still here?

Along with my co-founders, I started Zola in 2013 because the wedding industry needed a complete shakeup. The industry was lacking representation and technology for today’s modern couple so we introduced Zola as a platform built for everyone. Since that time, we cheered when Obergefell v. Hodges meant states were required to license and recognize same-sex marriage. 

But then we watched in horror as legal challenges were mounted. 

Just like the Masterpiece Cakeshop case of 2018 was not about a wedding cake, this case is not about wedding websites. Somehow, wedding websites—a place where couples could tell their beautiful story and share wedding details with guests—are now on the frontline of LGBTQ+ rights. What the Supreme Court will actually decide is if businesses can refuse services to same sex-couples on sound legal ground, the implications of which could be enormous and detrimental for generations of couples to come. Weddings are being used as a vehicle by a small group of people in order to pass an extreme agenda and roll back hard-won freedoms. Lorie Smith isn’t in the wedding business, nor is she representative of our supportive and inclusive industry. She’s never actually made a wedding website for anyone, regardless of their sexuality. 

At Zola, the focus is always on how two people can combine their backgrounds and perspectives into one ceremony, and how they can express their love for one another through every part of their wedding day. Michael and George, along with every other couple, should never have to worry if their love will be used as a political pawn, or if their florist will claim artistic freedom. 

What’s clear is how out of step the Supreme Court is with public opinion. 71% of Americans support same-sex marriage, with that number rising every year. And the country is changing too. According to a recent Gallup poll, the percentage of U.S. adults who identify as LGBTQ+ has doubled over the past decade, while 1 in 5 Gen-Z adults consider themselves part of the LGBTQ+ community.

But the wedding industry is in step. Thousands and thousands of vendors who are part of our community, from planners and venues to caterers, florists and photographers, have happily agreed to our Vendor Vows, to support every couple’s right to marriage, and promising to treat everyone with the love and respect they deserve. These vendors are all uniquely talented, but united in their devotion to helping bring wedding visions to life. They do stand for, and understand, today’s couples. Heterosexual couples can also take a stand by supporting inclusive vendors for their own nuptials. 

Celebrating differences, bringing people together, and listening to them. Our leaders, and those bringing these legal cases under false pretenses, could learn a lot from the wedding industry. 

We all need to do more. We need to recognize these threats to same-sex marriage for what they are. We need to stand taller and shout louder for the rights of all American couples to marry. 

After all, aren’t weddings better when everyone’s invited?

In the weeks leading up to and on November 8, 2022, people across the country will vote in the 2022 midterm elections for the politicians they want to represent them at the federal, state, and local levels (who’s on your ballot will vary depending on the state and district you live in). This includes U.S. representatives and senators, governors, secretary of states, attorney generals, city council people, and more—all of whom have a profound impact on our lives. 

The open Congressional seats are a primary focus for the Biden administration this November, as who controls the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate will influence President Biden’s agenda—and, ultimately, his success—for the second half of his term. However, many political organizers and activists will argue that voters’ energy should be equally, if not more, focused on who they’re voting for at the state and local level.

State legislatures, for example, have the power to ban abortion (and potentially restrict access to contraception), which we’ve already seen in conservative states like Arizona, Kentucky, and Mississippi following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in June. It’s also important to pay attention to secretary of states—27 of whom will be up for election during this election cycle—who are responsible for overseeing free and fair elections, as well as city council members who determine the budget for local schools and police departments, amongst other responsibilities.

With so much at stake at all levels of government across the country, it’s important to educate yourself and make a plan to vote in the 2022 midterm elections. Ahead, everything you need to know about the midterms, from the projected fate of Congress to key races to pay attention to.

Congress 101

All of the 435 House seats and 35 out of 100 Senate seats are up for election this November. Redistricting, as well as the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, have shaken up predictions about who will control the House and Senate come November. Before Roe was overturned, pundits strongly predicted Republicans would take control of the House. Now, they’re not so sure. 

Currently, there are 221 Democrats and 212 Republicans in the House (plus two vacancies following the death of Rep. Jackie Walorski and the resignation of Rep. Charlie Crist amid his run for Florida governor). To retain control of the House, Democrats have to keep 218 seats. Republicans are generally favored to keep most of the seats they currently occupy, however there are a wide range of scenarios that could play out. 

Meanwhile, in the Senate, all Republicans need to do is flip one seat to gain control of the chamber should all other occupied seats be held by the party. Fourteen Senate seats held by Democrats and 21 held by Republicans are up for grabs. Per The Hill, the Senate seats that are most likely to flip in 2022 for both Republicans and Democrats are in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Georgia, Wisconsin, Ohio, North Carolina, and Arizona. FiveThirtyEight laid out its predictions for the Senate, noting that Democrats are slightly favored to win the Senate. Though, again, anything is possible. Vox laid out three possible Congressional outcomes of the midterms— which includes Republicans controlling Congress, a divided Congress, and Democrats keeping control of Congress—and what each would mean for federal policy. 

What's at Stake

From abortion rights to gun policy to the environment to voting rights and democracy, there are a multitude of issues at stake in the 2022 midterm elections. If you're curious as to where Democrats and Republicans stand on the issues, this piece will give you a general overview of party policies and the consequences of voter apathy. 

Key Races to Pay Attention To

Women continue to play an important role in U.S. elections, both as candidates and voters, on both sides of the aisle. According to the Center for American Women and Politics, a record number of women are nominees for governor and state legislatures this fall, though we won’t see the same records in the U.S. House and Senate like we did in the 2018 midterm elections. (Vote Run Lead launched a data visualization tool that shows the status of women's representation in state legislatures across the country.) What everyone—but women especially—will need to pay attention to, no matter which party they belong to, are the election deniers on the ballot—some of whom are women themselves, like Arkansas gubernatorial nominee Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Rep. Elise Stefanik (NY-21) who’s up for reelection. 

“Something we're keeping our eye on and has big implications for women are all these election deniers. In at least 27 states there's an election denier on the ballot,” explains Erin Vilardi, founder and CEO of Vote Run Lead. “Election-denying and white supremacy and the patriarchy and the rights that women have gained in our democracy are deeply connected.” 

You’ve likely already seen the headlines about highly-anticipated races like the Texas governorship and the Pennsylvania Senate seat, amongst many others, that have been classified as some of the key races to watch during the 2022 midterms. That said, Marie Claire wanted to get a closer look specifically at the women who could break barriers at the state and local level this election cycle who may not receive as many national headlines, so we asked Vote Run Lead and Run for Something* to share some of the key races women and nonbinary candidates are running in that they’ve been keeping an eye on, below.

Although the list is primarily filled with Democrats, you can also view this full list of Republican women running for office in the 2022 midterms. 

State Races

Election: Arizona State House, District 4

Candidate: Laura Terech (D) 

Election: Arizona State House, District 24

Candidate: Analise Ortiz (D)

Election: California State Senate, District 20

Candidate: Caroline Menjivar (D)

Election: Colorado State House, District 29

Candidate: Lindsey Daugherty (D)

Election: Florida State Senate, District 18

Candidate: Eunic Ortiz (D)

Election: Florida State House, District 38

Candidate: Sarah Henry (D)

Election: Georgia Agriculture Commissioner

Candidate: Nakita Hemingway (D)

Election: Georgia Secretary of State

Candidate: Bee Nguyen (D)

Election: Georgia State House, District 97

Candidate: Ruwa Romman (D)

Election: Georgia State Senate, District 4

Candidate: Nabilah Islam (D)

Election: Illinois State House, District 51

Candidate: Nabeela Syed (D)

Election: Iowa State House, District 40

Candidate: MacKenzie Bills (D)

Election: Kentucky State House, District 33

Candidate: Kate Turner (D)

Election: Michigan State House, District 27

Candidate: Jaime Churches (D)

Election: Michigan State Senate, District 8

Candidate: Mallory McMorrow (D)

Election: New Hampshire Executive Council, District 5

Candidate: Shoshanna Kelly (D)

Election: New York State Senate, District 52

Candidate: Lea Webb (D) 

Election: Pennsylvania State Senate, District 38

Candidate: Lindsey Williams (D)

Election: South Carolina State House, District 5

Candidate: Heather Bauer (D)

Election: Texas State House, District 121

Candidate: Becca Moyer DeFelice (D)

Local Races

Election: DeKalb County Clerk

Candidate: Linh Nguyen (D)

Election: Harris County Judge

Candidate: Lina Hidalgo (D)

Election: Los Angeles County Supervisor

Candidate: Lindsey Horvath (D)

*The candidates listed above were shared by Vote Run Lead and Run for Something. They do not necessarily reflect endorsements from both organizations, nor does Marie Claire endorse these candidates. 

How to Register to Vote

Even if you believe you’re already registered to vote, voter suppression laws are currently being enacted across the country, which disproportionately affect people of color, so it’s important to make sure your registration is up-to-date and you’re ready to provide any additional materials needed leading up to or on Election Day. 

There are a number of ways to register to vote, but the easiest way would be to head to RocktheVote.org to register, check your registration status, request an absentee ballot (if necessary), and receive election reminders. You can find general voter and Election Day registration deadlines on Vote.org by typing in your state. This Washington Post article notes deadlines specifically for the 2022 midterm elections. 

You can also generate a sample ballot on Ballotpedia, where you’ll be able to see the candidates on your ballot as well as ballot measures that you can research before you head to the polls or vote by mail. After you've completed the above, encourage others to do the same and remind them that every election is consequential.

How to Become a Poll Worker

COVID-19 caused a poll worker shortage across the country during the 2020 election, which resulted in over 700,000 people becoming poll workers to help ensure safe, free, and fair elections. Today, there's still a great need for poll workers. If you're interested in becoming a poll worker and making a difference in your community during the 2022 midterm elections, head to PowerThePolls.org. Poll workers are trained and paid, though specific requirements for participation vary by jurisdiction. 

How Long Will It Take to Receive Final Election Results?

This will vary by state. States where voting is primarily conducted by mail, like California, Colorado, and Washington, typically take longer to count ballots, especially if they don't start counting until Election Day. In the 2020 election, vote-by-mail was a popular alternative to voting in person to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Right now, it's unclear whether we'll see a similar vote-by-mail trend in the 2022 midterm elections, though it is clear that more people are voting early in this year's midterm elections than previous ones. You can view early voting numbers across the country and follow live election updates here.

Like many other parents, Dawn Huckelbridge has felt the rise and fall, the adrenaline rush and crash, as paid leave legislation made its way closer to passing than ever before, then shrank, died, and was resuscitated. As the director of Paid Leave for All Action, she stood in the rain with other advocates and families the day they thought it had been cut from the Build Back Better Act. She wept the next morning when she learned it hadn’t. And then it was shelved again. For now.

Here, Huckelbridge shares insights into paid leave policy and her new political action committee (PAC) focused on the subject that launched in August. She outlines everything we need to know about paid leave as we approach the highly charged midterm elections, where a number of women's issues are at stake.

Marie Claire: Why is it more important than ever for voters to pay attention to paid family and medical leave?

Dawn Huckelbridge: This year we’ve witnessed some devastating attacks on our fundamental rights. We’ve also witnessed some hard fought victories against special interests; the system working as it should. There remains a lot to be hopeful about. But on the heels of a pandemic, a caregiving crisis, and a jobs crisis specific to women, we’ve seen the policies to address these problems stalled. 

After unprecedented progress on paid family and medical leave and care investments, they were dropped from [this summer's] Inflation Reduction package, which was a rare opportunity to finally fill the holes in our care infrastructure. 

But I’m here to tell you, it’s not over. 

MC: What is the current state of paid leave in this country? 

DH: Only 23 percent of U.S. workers have access to paid family leave through an employer. Nearly one in four people who give birth return to work within two weeks and one in five retirees leave the workforce earlier than planned to care for an ill family member. Our current laws aren’t keeping up with the needs of our families or a 21st century economy.

But the paid leave movement came farther in the last two years than it has in the previous three decades, and that is because of the power of women. For the first time, a national comprehensive paid family and medical leave program was in the President’s budget and agenda. It had the support of committee chairs and congressional leadership, mirroring long-standing support from voters and advocates across the country. For the first time, a national paid leave program was passed in the U.S. House of Representatives. But then, this year, [with] a Democratic Senate vote or two in the balance—plus opposition across the aisle—the package pivoted. 

I’m thrilled that President Biden and congressional Democrats have passed important investments to fight climate change, reign in the costs of prescription drugs, and reform tax rates for wealthy corporations. But systems to permanently help working people provide and receive care should not have been the first concession. They should have been a cornerstone. 

MC: Why has paid leave been sidelined for so long? 

DH: It’s not the first time issues disproportionately impacting women—and women of color, in particular—have been seen as soft or social instead of economic imperatives. It’s a thread related to political power that I’ve tried to change my entire career. It’s not the first time women and people of color have been the casualties of compromise. But it should be the last. If the issue is political power, we’re going to build more.

And so the week that the Inflation Reduction Act was announced without any care policies or paid leave [provisions] included, I launched the Paid Leave PAC. This committee, which I’ll run in my personal time, will build political power and demand accountability to finally win paid leave in the United States. Paid Leave PAC will support federal candidates who champion comprehensive paid family and medical leave policy and commit to its passage. And we are demanding they see it through. And the PAC is only the beginning. 

Paid leave is one of the most widely supported policies in this country. Two-thirds of small businesses want a national program. In battleground states, supermajorities of voters want paid leave passed now, including 94 percent of Democratic women, 71 percent of Independent women, and 61 percent of Republican women. Suburban women in these states wanted paid leave more than any other policy on the table. Women's votes matter tremendously. And they determine elections. 

MC: What does paid leave for all mean to you and your organization?

DH: We all should have the ability to care for ourselves and our loved ones without risking our paycheck—particularly when we know that public health is vulnerable, that overall care demands for aging parents and children will only grow. Paid leave is about our ability to be there for the people we love, our ability to sustain a family at all. It’s about our shared humanity. And, it’s about economic growth, competitiveness, and resilience. Passing paid leave with other care policies would yield millions of jobs, billions in wages, and trillions in GDP. It would reduce turnover costs, retain talented workers, and allow employers and small businesses to be more competitive. 

Care and paid leave are about freedom and family in a time when many elected officials are attacking both. Paid leave is not an issue that should be cut or compromised. It’s an issue that should be run on—and won.

MC: Tell us more about your new PAC. Why did you launch it? 

DH: I am launching Paid Leave PAC for the women and families who have been sidelined for too long. I'm doing this for the families I spoke to across the country: The mother who told us she kept the pajamas of the small son she cared for until he died, because they still smelled like him, but a little less every day. I'm doing this for the caregivers and essential workers, women at home and on the front lines, who risked the most during the crisis, and who continue to lose the most. I’m doing this because passing paid leave will be transformative in this country. Securing gender, racial, and economic justice requires it. 

This election season I believe it’s within reach to expand the [number of] seats [in government] that will support paid leave. I believe we can demand that care and paid leave be at the top of the agenda going forward and at the heart of the next legislative package. And I believe we can secure the votes and finally pass paid family and medical leave in the United States.

We are so close. And we are building to win. We need you too—and hope you’ll join us. 

Follow Dawn @dhuckelbridge as she continues to build the PAC. 

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Queen Elizabeth II passed away on Sept. 8 at the age of 96, and tributes are pouring in from around the globe. Celebrities including Mick Jagger, Elton John and Naomi Campbell have expressed their sadness, as have many world leaders such as British Prime Minister Liz Truss and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

We now have a statement from President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden, who were able to meet with the Queen in June 2021, just over a year before the monarch’s passing.

The Bidens’ moving words began, "Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II was more than a monarch. She defined an era."

As we prepare to adjust to a post-Elizabethan world, the President and First Lady captured the feelings of millions of people. "In a world of constant change, she was a steadying presence and a source of comfort and pride for generations of Britons, including many who have never known their country without her," they continued.

Speaking of the relationship they had with Elizabeth, the Bidens wrote, "We first met the Queen in 1982, traveling to the UK as part of a Senate delegation. And we were honored that she extended her hospitality to us in June 2021 during our first overseas trip as President and First Lady, where she charmed us with her wit, moved us with her kindness, and generously shared with us her wisdom."

They further wrote of the Queen’s long-standing relationship with the United States, especially "during our darkest days after 9/11, when she poignantly reminded us that 'Grief is the price we pay for love.'"

The Queen was known for providing comfort to the people with her words throughout her reign, with one of the most famous examples being the speech she made days after Princess Diana’s tragic death in 1997.

President Biden signed an executive order today designed to protect access to medication abortion and contraception. The president has been under pressure from reproductive justice advocates and other Democrats who have criticized him for not taking more action after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24. 

White House Gender Policy Director Jen Klein tells Marie Claire that the Biden administration has had dozens of meetings with multiple stakeholders to talk about reproductive rights in the last few weeks. The administration has met with doctors, healthcare providers, privacy experts, advocates, government officials, Planned Parenthood, and independent clinics. When asked if Biden has met recently with people who have had abortions to hear their stories, Klein said he has not, but that people on his staff (including Klein herself) have.

“We are being incredibly careful and analyzing every option,” says Klein. “We run down every option. The fact is there literally has not been anything that has been proposed by an advocate or a member of Congress that we haven’t considered.” 

Before signing the executive order, Biden called the Supreme Court’s decision “terrible” and “extreme” and reiterated that people need to “vote, vote, vote, vote.” His order directs his secretary of health and human services (HHS), Xavier Becerra, to come back in 30 days with steps that can be taken to ensure access to medication abortion, contraception, and emergency medical care. The executive order touches on a need for additional HIPAA guidance and better patient protections, and seeks to convene volunteer lawyers to represent “patients, providers, and third parties lawfully seeking or offering reproductive health care services.” 

The president also called for an interagency Task Force on Reproductive Health Care Access. Biden’s order asks the chair of the Federal Trade Commission to consider how to protect consumers’ privacy when seeking reproductive health care services.

As reproductive justice advocates wait to see how this executive order will play out, specifically, frustration persists for some Democrats who argue more needs to be done—in particular for pregnant people seeking abortions who can’t travel and live in states where the procedure is banned or extremely restricted.

Responding to Marie Claire's questions about what support is being considered for people who can’t travel for financial reasons, Klein says: “That is mostly being considered by non-governmental organizations. The philanthropy and the private sector is really stepping up to fund travel and they will continue to do that." She adds, "We don’t, at the moment, have a plan in place to be able to fund transportation.”

After a follow-up about how the administration will address cases of people like incarcerated individuals, who won’t be able to travel even if they secure funding, Klein says that they are looking into "everything." As for undocumented immigrants who may be prevented from access due to the risk of border check points, the White House will remain “vigilant” about how people are being restricted from travel, Klein says. “I would say that really no, no, no option and no action is off the table.”

In the wake of Dobbs, there have been reports of people being denied access to mifeprostone, a pill used in medication abortion, either because a doctor or pharmacist is nervous or receiving legal counsel not to prescribe or fill the medication. “Women are being told to wait until they’re ‘really sick’ at which point the pill can be given,” says Klein. 

She points to Attorney General Merrick Garland’s recent comments about medication abortion: “The FDA has approved the use of the medication Mifepristone. States may not ban Mifepristone based on disagreement with the FDA’s expert judgment about its safety and efficacy.”

Klein asserts that today’s executive order “takes the next step” toward figuring out what can be done to ensure that medication abortion is available and accessible. In the meantime, the battles continue to play out on the state-level as doctors, attorneys, and pregnant people attempt to navigate the new landscape of reproductive rights.

This story has been updated.

It's a dark day in our nation's history. Roe v. Wade has been overturned by Supreme Court, eliminating the U.S. right to a legal abortion after almost 50 years. 

In his immediate address to the nation following the decision, President Joe Biden called it a "solemn moment."

"They didn't limit it, they simply took it away," said the president. "This landmark case protected a women's right to choose, to reaffirm our basic principle of quality...Now with Roe gone, let's be very clear, the health and life of women in this nation are at risk." 

The Supreme Court decision will affect a women’s safe and confidential access to abortion, egregiously limiting reproductive rights, equitable healthcare, data privacy, and more. The nation’s leading voices on women’s equality took to social media to express their staunch objection to the Supreme Court decision and paint a picture of this decision's wide-ranging effects on all Americans.

Former First Lady Michelle Obama was among the first to speak up, pointing to a time when women had to risk losing their lives getting illegal abortions. "That is what our mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers lived through and now here we are again." 

She continued by highlighting her concern for teenage girls, mothers of nonviable pregnancies, as well as health care workers committed to reproductive rights. This is a moment for the next generation to seize, she added. "This horrifying decision will have devastating consequences, and it must be a wake-up call, especially to the young people who will bear its burden...If you give up now you will inherit a country that does not resemble you or any of the values you believe in."  

Former President Barack Obama echoed her sentiment. In a joint statement, the Obamas made clear that this is a time to take action: "Join with the activists who've been sounding the alarm on abortion access for years—and act." 

Officials like Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrote that this decision is literally a matter of life and death, and will hurt low-income communities the most. "Overturning Roe and outlawing abortions will never make them go away. It only makes them more dangerous, especially for the poor + marginalized. People will die because of this decision. And we will never stop until abortion rights are restored in the United States of America."

Congresswoman Cori Bush emphasized that "abortion care is health care" and speaks against far-right extremism: "Your racist, sexist, classist ruling won’t stop us from accessing the care we need."

"Hold onto hope. Do not give into despair," tweeted Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren. Following the Supreme Court leak last month, the official laid out the path to fight back for Marie Claire. 

Other leaders are focused on action, as well as holding the Supreme Court accountable for this outcome. 

Alexis McGill Johnson, CEO and president of Planned Parenthood, noted via social media: "The Supreme Court has now officially given politicians permission to control what we do with our bodies, deciding that we can no longer be trusted to determine the course of our own lives." 

Meanwhile, women's rights activist and journalist Gloria Steinem upheld the #BansOffOurBodies message: "Banning abortions does not stop the need for them, it just bans their safety."

Women's advocates were equally vociferous. Reshma Saujani, founder of Girls Who Code and the Marshall Plan for Moms, pointed out via Twitter that this is the second blow from the Supreme Court in two days. (On Thursday, the Court struck down a New York law limiting guns in public.) "Overturning Roe has never been about women or kids—but about controlling our lives and our bodies. If they really cared about us and our kids, they would make it *easier* to access abortion care. We would have paid leave, universal healthcare, and affordable child care."

As Biden pointed out in his speech, this decision is a deliberate effort made over decades. Saujani elaborates on this point, and suggests action steps: ""The anti-choice movement spent DECADES building toward this moment. They've been planting their anti-choice seeds for years. Not just on a state and national level — but on the local level as well. We have to do the same. Run for office. Run for your school board. Think LOCAL."

Some CEOs of corporations and tech startups announced they are prioritizing their workforce's health and wellbeing by ensuring access to benefits. In a Linkedin post, Lauren Hobart, CEO at Dick's Sporting Goods, announced concrete details on how the company will support employees: "... if a state one of our teammates lives in restricts access to abortion, DICK’S Sporting Goods will provide up to $4,000 in travel expense reimbursement to travel to the nearest location where that care is legally available. This benefit will be provided to any teammate, spouse or dependent enrolled in our medical plan, along with one support person."  

Daphne Delvaux, a California-based trial attorney focused on women's rights and workplace discrimination, expressed pure rage: "Justices accused of sexual assault wrote a ruling controlling women's bodies. A country without paid leave, healthcare, childcare, formula or safe schools is forcing pregnancies. No accountability or penalties on impregnators... "

You need not be a lawmaker, founder, or any person in power to speak up. Some of the most powerful stories come from the grassroots. Nashville-based activist Adrianne Wright poignantly illustrates this in her story about survival and healing from trauma for Marie Claire. And as Beth Silvers and Sarah Stewart Holland, cohosts of Pantsuit Politics, write in their call-to-action op-ed, "Democracy always offers a path forward even when we feel thrust into the past. And just like our grandmothers, we will have to fight to change a system that excludes and denies."

As for what we can do today, here are 10 organizations to support. If you're in need of resources and services: 

1. For those in a position to do so, donate to @AbortionFunds, @KeepOurClinics, @IWRising.

2. If you or someone you know needs an abortion, send them to ineedana.com. 

3. Get educated on abortion pills by going to @Plancpills.

The pandemic, a faltering economy, uneven foreign policy, a stalled agenda: One year into the Biden presidency and many Americans are fighting a sense of malaise. After multiple Covid variants, mixed messages over testing and vaccines, loss of loved ones, supply chain delays, the great resignation, soaring inflation, lack of affordable childcare, virtual schooling that left students lagging, it's understandable that Americans are looking to the White House for support and reassurance—but are they finding it? In this week’s marathon first press conference of 2022, President Biden was on the defensive, calling his report card “pretty good,” while he faces a stubborn Senate (including a few members of his own party) and the potential breakdown and breakup of his voting rights legislation and Build Back Better plan. 

Gina M. Raimondo, previously governor of Rhode Island (the first woman to hold the title), was sworn in on March, 2021, joining the president’s cabinet as U.S. Secretary of Commerce. As Secretary of Commerce, her mission is to create good jobs, empower entrepreneurship, and help American businesses compete globally. Raimondo, a Rhodes scholar, Yale Law graduate, and founder of her own venture capital firm, notes her father's lost manufacturing job when his factory moved overseas (after 26 years working in the industry) as a formative experience of her youth.

Here, she examines the White House's accomplishments, particularly how they've helped—or haven't—American women since January 20, 2021.

Marie Claire: How does your work at the Commerce Department apply to the lives of young women? 

Secretary Gina Raimondo: Fundamentally, what I do all day, every day is try to create high quality, high paying jobs. And I think [for] all the younger folks that I know, that's what they want. Often, they are burdened by debt, college debt, rent, and bills. And what you need is a decent job, and that is a pathway to a career. And so, at the Commerce Department, we spend all of our time working on that, whether that's job training, technical training for individuals, promoting investments in basic research that leads to innovation, that'll lead to more tech jobs. 

Also, childcare. I have worked very hard to bring about President Biden's vision that everybody ought to have access to high quality, affordable childcare. And I'm a little older than your average reader, but look, I have two kids. I have an elderly mother. And it's just really hard to have a career if you don't have access to reliable, affordable childcare. And so that's something that we are really pounding the table on with Congress every single day to make that a reality.

MC: People are frustrated that the President isn't able to get the American Families Plan through with paid family leave. What does it feel like to know you have a policy that will help people and it's being stymied? 

GR: If I'm being very honest, there are frustrating days. To me it seems like such a no-brainer. As a woman, as a mother, as someone who has juggled career and childcare my whole career, it seems so obvious that it's good for the economy, good for America, good for society, good for our children to have universal pre-K and affordable childcare. By the way, every other country's already figured that out. Europe, Asia, all these developed countries have already figured it out. So yes, of course it's frustrating. Why can't such an obvious, great thing happen? 

Having said that, we don't have time for frustration. We’ve got to get it done. So you just have to shelve that and get back to work. Keep making the case. There are some folks who just still don't get it. And so how do I feel? I feel that I'm here to do the work of the people. And so if there's people in the Senate who are unconvinced, we’ve got to do more. We’ve got to work harder. We’ve got to convince them.

MC: Your father worked for many years in a factory that made watches before the operations were moved overseas. Do you think we'll go back to a time when everything was made in America—my couch, the fabric in my shirt, the shirt itself, is made in America? 

GR: This is such a good question. And as you point out, it’s very near and dear to my heart because of my dad and all my uncles and such, who all worked in a factory in Rhode Island. Here's the thing about COVID: Right now, everybody has seen that supply chains have been so disrupted because of COVID. And a lot of that is because we are totally reliant on China and Asia for the goods that we need every day. And people realize, Hey, wait a minute. It might be cheaper and more efficient to outsource everything to Asia. But it's not always the right thing to do.

So I think we will be looking to reshore a lot of manufacturing, especially high-end manufacturing, electronics, semiconductors, because we realize we have to make this in America. This is a core piece of the work that I do in the Commerce Department. The President has asked me to take a lead on this. It's something I know about and care about. Will everything be made in America? No. But 10 years from now, will a lot more be made in America? Yes, I think so. I think COVID is going to be an instigator.

By the way, I hear [this] from business leaders. Just a couple of days ago, I had a dozen business leaders in my office, and I was just checking in with them. What are your challenges, etc.? They told me they are looking to get their manufacturing out of certain parts of Asia, bringing it back to America, because they've realized that we're too vulnerable. So that's jobs. That's really exciting.

MC: How do you feel about unions?

GR: Unions built the middle class in America. My dad and all of his brothers were members of [unions]. My family wouldn't have gotten into the middle class without unions. So I think that's a fact. And also the decline of union membership has gone right alongside the decline of the middle class in America. I think that they're very important. Also, for women, extremely important. Right now, so many women, especially women of color, work in jobs in childcare or home care, taking care of their elderly loved ones. Those are very difficult, very low paying jobs.

We ought to help them unionize. That's something I did when I was governor. I made a big effort to help unionize childcare workers who are almost all, in Rhode Island, Latina, low wage, [and] many [are] immigrants. They need a voice. They deserve raises. They deserve healthcare. They deserve good working conditions. They deserve a dignified job. And so I think that unions are great. I don't know your image when you think of a union. I mentioned my dad. It's not just for white guys in the building trades. It's for custodial workers and housekeepers and childcare workers who have some of the toughest, lowest paying jobs. And I think they ought to unionize.

MC: When we talk about improving women's lives, how important is the broadband piece of Build Back Better? 

GR: It's super, super important. It's life and death, literally life and death. If you live in a rural area, you can't necessarily drive three, four hours to get to the doctor. And so the doctor offers you telemedicine. Well, you can't take advantage of that if you don't have broadband. So many kids went a full year or more without any school because they had no broadband. There's no quote-unquote "virtual school." [If] you live in Navajo Nation, or really so many parts of rural America, there is no virtual school. 

What happens, if you're lucky, is you have a teacher who's very committed who will get in her car and drive to your house and drop off paper worksheets. And then you struggle through and try to figure out the worksheets, and then drive them back to your teacher. So the digital divide is enormous and has huge consequences. And I think the reality is we live in a digital world. And if you don't have broadband, it's almost like not having electricity or any other utility. It's necessary for opportunity. And so it's something that I'm very, very committed to.

By the way, the other thing is, broadband is no good if you can't afford it. You mentioned that you live in a city or near a city. That's great. If you live in a city, you probably have broadband. But if it's $100 a month, and you can't afford broadband, you might as well not have it. So that's the other piece of this.

MC: Many people say that—whether they could attend virtual school or not—that with school closures, kids are behind a year. Do you feel like we're going to have a ripple effect in the future where our economy is hit by this wave of the people who lost a year?

GR: So, as an aside, I don't have a crystal ball. I do worry that... I will say this: I was the governor during the pandemic and fought really hard to keep schools open for kids. I definitely think there will be long-term consequences for the kids who were young and out of school during COVID. And how that manifests itself and when we see that, I don't know. 

I will say this, too: A lot of what President Biden is trying to make happen in the Senate provides the support and education for these kids. Some of it is in our hands. There has been learning loss, no doubt about it. Mental health issues, anxiety, [and] depression among children is through the roof. So let's make investments in our mental health system. Let's make investments in after school programs and summer programs and good education. If we do that, maybe there won't be an impact. Or the impact will be less. If we don't, I think we will feel, a decade from now, really significant, long-term ramifications from what these kids have gone through. 

MC: Why did you go into politics?

GR: A moment of temporary insanity.

MC: …that continued for decades?

GR: Exactly. Too many glasses of wine. It seemed like a good thing.

This interview as been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

Members of Congress and the Senate are continuing to negotiate the contents of President Biden’s Build Back Better Agenda in the form of a $1 trillion infrastructure bill and a $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill. Amid conversations and negotiations, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm sat down with Marie Claire to discuss the importance of passing each bill.

As the head of the Department of Energy, Secretary Granholm is responsible for the massive role the department plays in the necessary clean energy solutions needed to combat climate change. “We’ve got 100,000 people who are researching next-generation solutions for our clean energy and climate problem,” she said.

In the spring, Secretary Granholm was tapped by President Biden to advance the American Jobs Plan, which is now known as the $1 trillion infrastructure plan. Now, as both bills continue to be negotiated, she and other members of the Cabinet are breaking down both the human and the hard infrastructure.

“When you say 'hard infrastructure,' we’re talking about roads and bridges, and broadband,” the Secretary noted in conversation with Tisch Sussman. “And then there is the human infrastructure. We want to make sure families have access to child care, that senior citizens can get health and dental through Medicare, that we can get people access to college. Both of them are necessary and important.”

Last weekend, Speaker Pelosi announced a new deadline for passing both bills, telling her caucus that October 31 will be the new target date. With new dates looming, there are whispers that the figures for the reconciliation bill will be drastically cut, putting essential programs like paid family leave, the child tax credit, and more at risk.

The Secretary remained hopeful during the interview, saying she thinks they are about 95 percent of the way there: "I think we are going to see this, if not by the end of this month, then, you know, by Thanksgiving."

Although October 31 is still a few weeks away, Democrats are still struggling to come to a consensus, potentially putting things like paid leave on the chopping block. “Having paid family leave is part of this human infrastructure,” said the Secretary. “They can take the time they need so that these little human beings have those important first months with a parent. “

Secretary Granholm is eager to pass Biden’s Build Back Better plan in its entirety, but she also understands politics. As former Governor of Michigan who worked with a less-than-friendly legislature, she knows what compromise is and laid it out honestly. “Do we give a haircut or do we amputate?” she said. In other words, do they trim each program down or do they slash programs?

It's clear that more than anything, she cares. “Who are we if we are not combating child poverty?” she asks. "It’s ridiculous that we’re the only advanced nation on the planet that doesn’t help families with child care.”

Right now is a critical moment in D.C., as the tough realities for millions meet policy. As a longtime leader and politician, Granholm knows that it’s the American people who will eventually get the final say. “You can hire them, you can fire them,” she said. “The most important thing that you can do is make your voice heard...Vote.”

After more than a year of headlines documenting the real-time exodus of moms from the workforce and an ongoing state of crisis in maternal health and mortality, the pandemic has forced a long overdue conversation about the systemic inequities of American motherhood.

A slate of federal policies could begin to mend the breach. On August 24, Congress approved the $3.5 trillion budget plan that will be utilized for the upcoming reconciliation bill. This will likely include staples of President Biden’s American Families Plan, such as an expansion of the child tax credit, paid family and medical leave, and early education funding. Other reforms in play include the Marshall Plan for Moms, which reflects the demands of a national movement to center mothers in the economic recovery, the Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act of 2021 to address alarming racial and ethnic disparities in maternal health outcomes, and the Support Through Loss Act to establish paid leave for workers who experience pregnancy loss or difficulties related to surrogacy, fertility, and adoption.

As we advance proposals to elevate and ensure the well-being of mothers, we must not neglect another silent impact on maternal and women’s health: Period poverty, a plight that has garnered global attention yet remains one of America’s hidden inequities.

The impact of menstrual inequity runs deep. A 2019 study found that among low-income women in St. Louis, nearly half (46 percent) had to choose between buying food and spending money on menstrual products. People experiencing housing insecurity report isolation and even illness and infection caused by using tampons and pads for longer than recommended. Sometimes they have to improvise with items like discarded paper bags or newspapers.

For teens, lack of support and product accessibility (especially for transgender teens who are already facing an unprecedented number of legislative attacks) can lead to compromised health and lost classroom time—even disciplinary intervention. The pandemic exacerbated the problem: Many people have been unable to access menstrual products from public facilities they once relied on. Another study found that one in 10 college students surveyed nationwide were unable to afford menstrual products in the last year, with nearly a quarter of Latina respondents and 20 percent of Black respondents reporting an ongoing lack of access.

Policy leaders have begun to respond. The 2021 state legislative session saw the passage of laws or extensions of fiscal budgets in California, Colorado, Georgia, Oregon, and Washington that ensure the provision of free tampons and pads in secondary schools and universities. And earlier this summer, Louisiana, Maine, and Vermont joined the roster of states that have eliminated the sales tax on period supplies—a.k.a. the “tampon tax”—bringing the total number states where people can buy tax-free menstrual products to 23.

Efforts to make menstrual products generally more affordable have been popular on a national level, too. For example, a tweak to the federal tax code in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, means that tampons, pads, cups, and period underwear can be purchased with pre-tax dollars via employee health savings and flexible spending accounts.

Yet the distinct needs of low-income mothers—who not only often have their own periods to manage, but also the periods of those in their care—are overlooked. Women-led households are primary participants in many of our nation’s most vital social safety net programs. They’re included among the 42 million recipients of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, formerly known as the Food Stamp Program. Soon-to-be or new moms and their children are also the exclusive recipients of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), which offers supplemental food packages and other essential health resources to roughly eight million people.

Shockingly, neither of these programs allow for the purchase of menstrual products. To add insult to injury, the federal government lumps tampons and pads in the same “off limits” category as dog food, cigarettes, and liquor.

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines maternal health as "the health of women during pregnancy, childbirth, and the postnatal period." For new mothers, the need for menstrual products is most acute immediately following childbirth. Pads to absorb postpartum flow, which can last as long as six weeks, are a necessity for new mothers’ physical and emotional well-being. And, of course, regular menstrual cycles resume once breast-feeding ceases and sooner if babies are fed formula.

Those who rely on food stamps also face significant pressures when it comes to menstrual access and affordability. Cost-effective grocery shopping entails balancing a tight budget with nutritional needs; menstruation implicates this equation, often causing people to choose between having enough menstrual products or enough food on the table. For SNAP recipients with more than one person in the home who menstruates—moms with teens, grandmothers heading multigenerational households—the financial burden increases.

Given the critical impact that reforming SNAP and WIC would have on the mothers who need it most, now is the time to call out these unjust exclusions and set a precedent at the federal level. As Congress drafts the reconciliation bill, members should factor in menstrual access if at all possible; and as they debate other legislative proposals impacting moms, they should prioritize menstrual access from the outset.

Last month, the Biden administration called for an unprecedented expansion of SNAP. Monthly benefits will rise on average by $36–the largest increase in the program’s history–and go into effect in October. While that is an excellent start, making menstrual products eligible for purchase with food stamps, as well as via WIC, would be a simple and humane addition. Plus, because all purchases made with federal benefits are already exempt by law from state sales tax, this change would effectively eliminate the “tampon tax” for people who have low incomes, no matter where they reside—an exponential win.

Periods don’t stop for pandemics—and neither have our nation’s moms. As the president and members of Congress pledge to ameliorate the burdens carried by struggling mothers, we cannot afford to let them leave the costs of menstruation out of the debate.

In the week since President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race, all eyes have been on the Democratic nominee for president, Vice President Kamala Harris.

Everything from her record as California's attorney general, to information about her father, Donald Harris, to even learning more about her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, potential voters are looking to learn more about Harris, who could very well become the first woman, Black woman, and South Asian woman to become president of the United States.

That includes voters wanting to learn more about Vice President Kamala Harris' net worth. Back in 2019, when she ended her 2020 presidential campaign, Harris said she had to back out of the crowded Democratic primary race "simply doesn't have the financial resources we need to continue."

"I'm not a billionaire. I can't fund my own campaign," she explained at the time. "And as the campaign has gone on, it's become harder and harder to raise the money we need to compete."

At the time, according to Fortune, Harris was worth an estimated $6.3 million. Since then, her net worth has increased.

Currently, Harris' net worth stands at an estimated $8 million, according to Forbes. As vice president, Harris earns $218,000 per year. The reason for her net worth's increase, according to Forbes, is largely thanks to a multimillion-dollar home Harris shares with her husband, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff.

According to the same Forbes report, the home increased in value, from $1 million in 2021 to $4.4 million in 2024. Harris has also more than $500,000 from various book advances she received before entering the White House.

It goes without saying, but the nation's first female VP, first Black VP, and first VP of South Asian descent has worked hard for her money—so here's a breakdown of where Harris's significant wealth comes from.

How much money has Kamala Harris earned from her political career?

Kamala was elected as district attorney of San Francisco in 2003. According to Forbes, she made more than $140,000 that year, with her wages steadily increasing throughout her six years in the position, peaking at $202,000 in 2010. The job made her eligible for a pension worth at least $250,000 today, per Women's Health.

When Harris became California's attorney general in 2010, according to her tax returns previously obtained by The New York Times, she took a significant drop in pay from her previous job, earning just under $160,000 a year. Seven years later, when she took office as a U.S. Senator representing California, her pay increased by a slight amount, up to the $174,000 annual salary that's been paid to every Senator since their last pay raise in 2009.

When Harris was sworn in as vice president in January 2021, she started to receive a federally mandated salary of $235,100—quite the pay bump from her past political gigs. In addition, Harris is allowed to write off up to $100,000 for VP-related expenses, along with being housed for free at Number One Observatory Circle, the official vice presidential residence.

How much money has Kamala Harris earned from her books?

As a three-time author, Harris has earned hundreds of thousands of dollars in book advances.

Harris published Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer in 2009 and a children's picture book called Superheroes Are Everywhere in 2019. That same year, she released her memoir, The Truths We Hold: An American Journey. According to her 2018 tax returns, she earned $320,125 from writing and publishing her memoir.

In 2019, Harris reported earning $277,763 from various book advances. Since then, her three books garnished more than $359,000 in 2020 and $456,000 in 2021 in royalties.

Harris has not written or released a new book since taking office, however, so her book-related revenue stream decreased to $80,000 in 2022 and $8,488 in 2023, according to her latest filing and as reported by Forbes.

If Harris does become the first woman president of the United States, more books are likely to come.

What are Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff's joint assets?

Harris married lawyer Douglas Emhoff in 2014. During their time together and before Harris became vice president of the United States, the couple were estimated to have earned a combined $8.2 million in total, with annual earnings remaining steady around the $2 million mark throughout their six years of joint filings.

Most of their income came from Emhoff’s work at law firms Venable and DLA Piper, according to Forbes. In 2018 alone, according to the tax return Harris released for that fiscal year, she and Emhoff reported a total of $1.9 million in adjusted gross income; they paid a tax rate of about 37% on their earnings that year, which was, interestingly, the highest tax rate paid by any of the 2020 Democratic candidates that year, per The New York Times.

But when Harris resumed the vice presidency in 2021, her husband announced he would leave his law firm (and his substantial salary) behind.

Instead, he became a member of Georgetown University's law school faculty, earning $200,000 a year. The move "significantly dropped" the couple's income, ABC News reports, from more than $3 million in 2019 to around $450,000 in 2023.

Last year, we learned that President Trump paid $750 or less in taxes over the past several years and that he and his companies have outstanding debt that may exceed $1 billion. This stands in stark contrast to the current president, Joe Biden, who was once referred to as the "poorest man in Congress." Granted, President Biden is wealthy by anyone's standards, but his net worth and how he obtained it is far easier to trace, especially because he has released his tax returns every year for more than a decade, including while vice president and, now, president. With a family history that spanned both wealth and hardship, Biden spent many years as "Middle Class Joe" before he obtained his current net worth.

How much is Joe Biden worth today?

President Biden is reportedly worth $9 million at present, which is significantly more than earlier in his career. This number, estimated from Forbes and calculated in 2019, is based on a total portfolio of $4 million in real estate (President Biden and wife First Lady Dr. Jill Biden own two homes in Delaware), cash/investments worth $4 million, and a federal pension worth more than $1 million.

Before President Biden took office, the Bidens released their tax returns from 2016 to 2018, which showed that they paid about a third of their income in taxes in 2017 and 2018 ($3.7 million and $1.5 million, respectively), and that they donated a significant amount to charity in 2017 and 2018 ($1 million and $275,000, respectively).

On May 17, 2021, President Biden and Dr. Jill Biden released their tax returns for 2020 and reported a federal adjusted gross income of $607,336 while paying $157,414 in taxes. You can see more information on their recent tax returns here. And, if you're wondering, Vice President Kamala Harris is thought to be worth around $6.3 million. She also released her and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff's 2020 tax returns, which can be found here.

How did Joe Biden make his money?

Joe Biden Sr., who had a profound impact on his son, came from wealth—his father ran a division of American Oil. But Joe Sr. set out as an entrepreneur and had several business failures, leaving the family impoverished, according to his son's memoir (at one point the children even went to stay with their grandmother). Joe Sr. eventually found work selling cars and the family settled in Delaware–where they remain to this day—and Joe Jr. completed a work-study program to attend the prestigious Archmere Academy in Claymont.

President Biden started working at a law firm after his marriage to first wife Neilia and then became one of the youngest senators ever elected with a starting salary at about $42,500 a year ($250,000 in today's dollars, adjusted for inflation). He started releasing his tax forms in 1998. Dr. Biden's work in community colleges also contributed to their overall salary; she's been an educator for more than three decades. In 2009, President Biden's senator salary was $169,300, then his salary as President Obama's vice president averaged about $225,000 every year.

How much did Joe Biden make as vice president?

When President Biden officially ended his term as VP, he filed a financial disclosure form that listed his net worth between $897,000 and $489,000. As VP, he earned about $225,000 every year. But then, in the subsequent two years, the couple apparently made more than $15 million in speaking fees, book tours (both he and and Dr. Biden released memoirs), and leadership at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement at the University of Pennsylvania. In turn, they were able to make more donations and pay off one of their mortgages—one is still outstanding, as well as a line of credit for one of their sons—and buy a new property in Rehoboth Beach.

What is Joe Biden's salary as president?

U.S. law states that the United States president has to be paid a salary while in office. In 2001, Congress raised the presidential salary from $200,000 to $400,000 and added an extra expense allowance of $50,000 a year. The president also receives a $100,000 nontaxable travel account and $19,000 for entertainment. The presidential salary is taxable, but the other added expenses are not.

Dr. Biden plans to continue to teach while serving as the first lady. "If we get to the White House, I'm gonna continue to teach," she told CBS Sunday Morning last August. "It's important, and I want people to value teachers and know their contributions, and lift up the profession." This makes her the only first lady to hold a paid job and the first to have a doctorate degree.

President Joe Biden has always made clear that his number one priority is his family. He has seven grandchildren, with several of them playing key roles in his 2020 campaign, but perhaps the one he's been seen with most often is his beloved granddaughter Naomi Biden. The 26-year-old Columbia law student and daughter of President Biden's son Hunter is an important person to the president-elect. She was named after President Biden's late daughter Naomi, who he lost in a tragic car accident in 1972, and she's very close with her grandfather. So—what do we know about her?

Naomi is passionate about politics.

When President Biden was serving as vice president, Naomi went on several different international trips with her grandparents, visiting countries such as New Zealand, Turkey, China, and more.

She's active on Twitter, showing her support for her grandfather as well as facing the criticism against him head-on. In a Twitter thread last year, Naomi addressed claims that her grandfather wasn't progressive enough. She warned that if they decide not to vote against Donald Trump in the fall, they should "apologize to the children who have been separated from their parents, put in cages, and robbed of their future."

Well into her grandfather's presidency, Naomi continues to remain active on Twitter (though she's definitely tweeting a little less frequently, hence the "tweets permanently pending approval" in her bio), praising President Biden on his joint congressional address in April.

Naomi is close with her cousins—Biden's other grandchildren.

The Biden grandchildren have a very tight-knit relationship, as seen during President Biden and Vice President Harris's inauguration in January. Naomi considers Natalie Biden, daughter of the late Beau Biden, her "mini me" and emphasizes the grandchildren's bond in this Instagram post.

Here's a cute video of some of the grandchildren together:

And another one:

Naomi has a serious boyfriend.

Naomi has been dating fellow law student Peter Neal for a few years now. According to Guest of Guest, he previously attended Penn Law and interned for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and at the White House when President Obama was in office.

They both have a knack for helping people, and created a website featuring a quiz that allows people to see if they qualify to receive aid on the CARES Act. It's currently helped more than 10,000 people and counting get assistance from the $2.2 trillion stimulus package.

The couple told MTV News it took a total of almost 48 hours to read through all 335 pages, create the quiz, and to code the website. The only time they rested? To sleep three hours each night. "It was either that or watch Curb Your Enthusiasm for the third time in a row," Naomi told MTV News.

She's kinda friends with Tiffany Trump.

I know what you're thinking: Is this an episode of Black Mirror? Tiffany Trump posted a photo with Naomi back in 2018 during a weekend trip in the Hamptons on her Instagram story. The black-and-white photo was captioned "@naomibiden," and featured a pink and purple heart emoji.

Surprisingly, this wasn't just for show—the two women go way back. They both attended the University of Pennsylvania at the same time, with Tiffany receiving a degree in international relations and Naomi earning a degree in sociology. (Maybe they had late-night study sessions together?) At their graduation in 2016, both President Biden and former President Trump were there to see each respective family member receive their diploma. Talk about foreshadowing.

For many Republican leaders, this moment in history—a devastating pandemic, an economy on life support, a violent insurrection at the Capitol, and a second presidential impeachment—has called into question the values, ideals, and alliances of their party. Some can’t admit political defeat, others can’t stop spewing QAnon conspiracies, and then there are those holding tight to traditional party ideals, like small government and fiscal and social conservatism. With nearly 140,000 Republicans having quit the party this past January alone (in the 25 states with readily available data), it’s clear something must be done.

We asked leading conservative women what to make of the past four years and how to approach the next. One point stood out: It’s time for the good old boys’ club to go. As Rep. Elise Stefanik (NY-21), founder of E-PAC, which helped fuel a record-breaking pink wave in November, told us, “Women are very effective legislators and decision makers, and they’re good listeners, which ultimately makes you the most effective public servant. Frankly, that’s how some of our women Republicans won.”

Young Kim, U.S. Representative for California’s 39th District

Freshman Kim, one of the first Korean American women in Congress, spoke out against Trump’s anti-Asian “kung flu” comments during her campaign. She serves on three committees, including Small Business.

On dealing with backlash:

As long as I know in my heart that I did the right thing, I have to get past backlash from the base or other Republicans. I know I am not going to make everybody happy 100 percent of the time. If I can go to sleep after taking a tough position, then I know that I’ve done something right.

On unity:

I was encouraged to hear [President] Biden asking for unity. That’s why I was one of the 17 in the [GOP] freshman class to send a letter to the Biden administration offering our sincere desire to work in a bipartisan way to move our country forward. I came to Congress to bring that independent voice, independent leadership, and to find bipartisan solutions to get us out of this very difficult time.

On moving the party away from extremism:

[Removing Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from her committee appointments] was a tough vote. I respect her fighting spirit, and I recognize she was elected by her constituents. But words have consequences. This was not a vote against Republican leadership. This was about sending a message that such hateful rhetoric and anti-Semitism have no place in our country.

On paving the way:

While it’s exciting to be one of the first, I’m very excited to know that I’m not the last. I really hope that my story can inspire immigrants, especially young girls, that they too can achieve their dreams, just like I did. I really feel that in this Congress, I have the moral responsibility to encourage other women and immigrants to speak up and get involved.

Jaime Herrera Beutler, U.S. Representative for Washington’s 3rd District

Herrera Beutler has been re-elected five times and is the first Hispanic person to represent Washington State on a federal level.

On addressing the current crises:

Many of the problems that existed before have been exacerbated by COVID: housing affordability, childcare access, college costs, government regulation that gives [the] advantage to big corporations while stifling small businesses, and on and on. I’m going to redouble my efforts to tackle these challenges, working with Republicans and Democrats to bring solutions like increasing access to childcare, keeping Main Street afloat, and getting students back into the classroom.

On the future of women in the GOP:

A better question is, “What is the future of Republican women in history?” I’d answer it by saying, “Whatever we want it to be.” It’s a simple guiding principle: We want Americans to continue enjoying those ideals the Declaration of Independence so clearly states: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And I think more and more Americans want a refocus on those ideals, which is why, despite the top of the Republican ticket losing, the 2020 election saw a record-breaking number of Republican women elected to the U.S. House—the most in history! To me, that shows Republican women are more motivated than ever to step up and serve their communities, and their communities are responding. I predict that number continues to rise.

On the second impeachment trial:

The January 6 attack on our Capitol will live in infamy, and I was there. I didn’t invite the opportunity to testify, but if asked, I wasn’t going to suddenly reverse course to suppress the information I had about the president gloating in the attack. My faith, my moral compass, and my belief that conservatives are willing to face the truth meant I had an obligation to share the facts.

On getting back to basics:

We can either be a strong, united Republican majority delivering on consequential conservative ideals—ideals like free markets that generate economic opportunity for all, limited government, personal responsibility, individual liberty, justice, life, family, and equal opportunity for everyone in our communities—or we can be a splintered Republican minority driven by anger and fear and centered on one man. I choose the former, and my hope is that others will join me in re-establishing what our party stands for.

On Democratic vs. Republican Policy:

As a nation, we face big challenges. To name a few: racial injustice, economic oppression, government overreach (and incompetence), skyrocketing health-care costs, and decreasing employment opportunities. Leading Democrats think the answer to these challenges is more government intervention. I believe that We the People have the answers. We must empower people to limit their government, choose how to raise their families, decide which school is best for their kids, start a business or a nonprofit, and practice their faith. I believe most Americans agree with [conservatives] on these issues. That’s why in the most recent election we saw Republicans win seats in the U.S House, despite widespread prognostications that our party was doomed. When we present our priorities to citizens directly, Americans choose our ideals and solutions over the kind of socialist agenda that’s become the new bedrock of the Democratic Party.

Jennifer Carroll, National Spokesperson, Maggie’s List

Carroll, the first Black person and first woman elected to be Florida’s lieutenant governor, is the spokesperson for conservative political action committee Maggie’s List.

On changes she’s seen:

When I ran for Congress [in 2000], it was more political to not receive support from my party—the good old boys in the system—because they had their political agenda. It’s Who is going to grease the [palm] for me so that I can either stay in power or make money? which is unfortunate, and you still see some of that. Now that we have our first woman vice president and more women than ever elected to Congress, leadership cannot refute the importance of women taking over government positions. They’re going to have to make room.

On moving forward:

Unfortunately, we have come to a point where many have taken their corners. Our elected officials, at least those who have been there for over 10 or 20 years, have forgotten that they represent the people. This is a republic. The female candidates that Maggie’s List endorsed embrace that. We are hoping that they will push those who have forgotten the people to really bring it back.

Sarah Longwell, Executive Director, Republican Accountability Project (RAP)

Longwell cofounded RAP with the goal of steering the party in a less extreme direction following the deadly Capitol attack. 

On rejecting Trumpism:

Joe Biden has obviously talked a lot about unity, and I think all of us would like to live in a country that is more unified, but the fact is, Donald Trump has spent the last five years tearing the country apart and deepening divisions. It culminated with an attack on the Capitol because he was lying to voters about an election being stolen. As long as the Republican Party remains in thrall of Donald Trump, it’s going to be very difficult to move forward because [he] is the most divisive political figure of the modern era.

On the GOP’s future:

One of the things you saw during the Republican National Convention last year is that they didn’t, as is customary, put forward a platform. All they did was put out a statement about their complete support for Donald Trump. For the Republican Party to pull itself together, it’s going to need an affirmative policy agenda—something that it stands for. It cannot simply be against the Democrats.

People like me, who would otherwise be involved in the Republican Party, are leaving. You’re seeing all over the country people changing their registration. The Republican Party is headed for an identity crisis because it doesn’t know what it stands for beyond Donald Trump. People who used to traditionally be Republicans—college-educated suburban voters—those people are drifting away from the party because they don’t feel at home. I will continue to fight for a responsible center-right party, and I will continue to defend Republicans who do the right thing, like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger and Mitt Romney.

On the forces dividing us:

Some of it is social media, but some of it is just the state of our politics, where we treat one another as enemies rather than opponents. Where the rhetoric that people use—Donald Trump didn’t invent it, but he made an art out of it—of calling the media the enemy of the people and using constant incendiary and divisive language, name-calling, and lying. I also think people are about 30 percent crazier right now because we’ve been cut off [for a year] from a lot of the other activities that keep people grounded. You can’t go to church or school and be out doing things that keep you from focusing on politics. Everybody’s a little angrier.

Julie Conway, Executive Director, Value in Electing Women (VIEW)

Founded in 1997, the VIEW political action committee has helped raise more than $8.5 million to elect Republican women to Congress.

On women leading the charge:

People often say, “How can you be a Republican and be a woman?” And “The Republican Party hasn’t taken care of Republican women.” And while some of that is true, there are very serious women who have worked very hard to get to where they are, and I think they are going to start to be heard, such as Kay Granger, the ranking member and lead Republican of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, and Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the incoming Republican leader at the House Energy and Commerce Committee. These are two of the most important committees in Congress led by women—strong Republican women who do not think this is a circus and do not want to be on TV saying something outrageous.

On a third party:

I think the Trumpers are the third party. They are not Republicans. They are right-wing extremists following this idol worship of Trump. If that’s what you want to do, fine, but that doesn’t make you the Republican Party.

On the future:

There is a path for calmer minds to prevail. There definitely needs to be a pivot back to being a legislative body that’s not a circus. [Legislators] want what they were elected to do: to actually get the country back moving again; get the kids back in schools; deal with healthcare; deal with education; deal with safety.

S.E. Cupp, Political Commentator, CNN

Cupp is a TV pundit, nationally syndicated columnist, and author of Why You’re Wrong About the Right: Behind the Myths—The Surprising Truth About Conservatives (with Brett Joshpe). 

On taking stock:

I’ve been asking myself for the past four years what the future of the GOP is. All the way back in 2012, when I worked on the GOP autopsy, we identified the gaps in our voters: women, minorities, LGBTQ+, and millennials. How could we make inroads to those constituencies? I think we started to make some progress, and then, of course, Trump comes along and really demolishes all of that.

There’s a famous axiom in politics: When you get sent to the woodshed, you go there and think about what you’ve done. And that’s not really happening. When you look at the fact that Trump not only lost after one term but Republicans lost the House and the Senate during the course of his term, who in their right minds would say, “Well, let’s keep doing what we’ve been doing”?

On conservative values:

Let me just say, I think conservatism as a value set survives this. Whether the Republican Party in its current form does or not is another thing. Fiscal responsibility, for example, self-reliance—that’s for everyone. Lower taxes, being able to keep more of your own money, and antiprotectionism. All of this is good for women because it’s good for everyone. But we haven’t been able to really even engage in those kinds of political debates because Trump and Trumpism and wild, baseless conspiracy theories have taken over the party and the conversation and eaten up all the oxygen.

On the credibility gap:

Who would listen to any Republican who wants to say what’s good for women or what’s good for anyone other than white guys of a certain age? We’ve really lost any moral authority we once had, if we had it.

It’s so important to have two strong parties in this country because neither gets it right every time. And [women] can end up being pawns in a system that is fighting over politics, and that’s awful for anyone caught in that, but especially for women because our needs are so dire and so great. The world runs better when women are feeling good. And I think too many women are not feeling good right now. Women should want the Republican Party, even if they’re outside of it, to be better than this and stronger than this.

Responses edited for length and clarity.

A version of this story appears in the April 2021 issue of Marie Claire.

subscribe here

As soon as the results of the election had finally been certified in his favor and the transition was officially allowed to commence, now-President Joe Biden wasted no time at all in releasing a steady stream of Cabinet and other senior White House staff appointments in the months leading up to his inauguration on Jan. 20. Among these, in line with his promise to construct an Executive Branch that reflects the diversity of the citizens it'll be serving, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris announced on Nov. 29 their press team appointees, all of whom are women.

"Communicating directly and truthfully to the American people is one of the most important duties of a President, and this team will be entrusted with the tremendous responsibility of connecting the American people to the White House. I am proud to announce today the first senior White House communications team comprised entirely of women," Biden said in a statement.

The seven appointees include communications directors for Harris, First Lady Dr. Jill Biden, and the White House as a whole, as well as two deputy directors and Harris' chief spokesperson. At the helm of this history-making team is Jen Psaki, who, as press secretary, now serves as spokesperson for the entire Biden administration. Here's what you need to know about Psaki, including all the details on her (many) years of experience in senior White House communications roles.

Psaki has worked as a core member of multiple presidential and campaign press teams for nearly two decades. Within a few years of her graduation from the College of William & Mary in 2000, she joined John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign as deputy press secretary. After a short stint as a spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, she returned to the world of presidential campaigns, joining the 2008 Obama-Biden campaign as traveling press secretary, a position she held again throughout their 2012 reelection campaign.

During Obama's first term, Psaki was named deputy press secretary, then promoted to deputy communications director. Following a brief break from politics in 2011, during which she worked as senior vice president and managing director at a Washington, D.C., PR firm, Psaki rejoined Obama's reelection campaign. During his second term, she served as the spokesperson for the State Department under Secretary John Kerry, before returning to the White House as communications director for the last two years of the Obama administration.

While Donald Trump was in office, Psaki became a political commentator on CNN and the vice president for communications and strategy at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Upon Biden's election to the presidency, however, she left those posts to oversee the confirmations team for the Biden-Harris transition.

What will Psaki do as press secretary?

The White House press secretary is the media's go-to source for information and statements from the Executive Branch, for which the press secretary serves as the primary spokesperson. The post was first established in 1929, under President Herbert Hoover.

As the public face of the White House, Psaki will gather information from the president, vice president, and Cabinet, and coordinate with the rest of the administration's press team to hold daily press briefings, during which she'll provide Biden's daily schedule and outline the administration's official position on national and international happenings. The White House press secretary is also typically made available to the press throughout the day in other press conferences, event-specific briefings, and off-camera "press gaggles" to answer their questions about specific administration plans and policies.

If you'd like to keep up with Psaki's work, her press briefings are streamed live every day by C-SPAN, PBS, and other news networks, and she provides further daily updates via the official @PressSec Twitter account.

What did Psaki say about her appointment?

Upon Biden's announcement that Psaki would be returning with him to the White House as press secretary, she tweeted, "Honored to work again for @JoeBiden, a man I worked on behalf of during the Obama-Biden Admin as he helped lead economic recovery, rebuilt our relationships with partners (turns out good practice) and injected empathy and humanity into nearly every meeting I sat in."

She also gave shout-outs to the other "talented, battle-tested" women joining her on the senior White House communications team, noting that they comprise the "most diverse team in history and also 6 Moms of young kids."

Finally, Psaki went on to hint at the form the Biden administration's communications strategy will take with her at the lead: "We can't wait to share what we are thinking as we get closer to inauguration, but [Principal Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre] and I spoke just this am about taking the next few weeks to think outside of the box about how to ensure we are making the Biden-Harris agenda more accessible from the podium," she tweeted.

How did her first press briefing go?

Within hours of taking office, Biden immediately settled in to get work done, signing 17 executive orders and dispatching Psaki to deliver her first official press briefing to the assembled White House press corps on the afternoon of Jan. 20. True to her initial statements upon being appointed to the position, Psaki made a point throughout the address to emphasize the new White House communications team's focus on "rebuilding trust" and providing transparency and accessibility, in sharp contrast to the antagonistic attitude toward the media adopted by the previous administration's comms squad.

"I have deep respect for the role of a free and independent press. We have a common goal, which is sharing accurate information with the American people," Psaki said during the briefing, per The New York Times, adding, "There will be times when we see things differently in this room. That's OK. That's part of our democracy."

She proceeded to take questions from almost every reporter present, including those with viewpoints different from those of the administration. Groundbreaking!

In a fun peek behind the very stately curtain, an episode of Showtime's The Circus that aired after Psaki's debut shows her prepping for her first press briefing. She does a little dance to shake off the pre-briefing jitters, while singing a little tune about the big day.

In an interview later on in the episode, per The Hill, she explained the reason for her first day nerves. "Even though I had done a similar job at the State Department, you have the weight of 'I want to represent the president, I want to meet this moment, people are watching, I want my mom to be proud'—you know, all the things," Psaki said. "But once I got out there, it felt great."

How does her approach compare to previous press secretaries?

Psaki's calm, reasonable approach to the press briefing was refreshingly banal compared to the last four years' worth of press secretaries: The Trump administration's briefings kicked off with Sean Spicer lying about the size of the crowd in attendance at Trump's inauguration, and wrapped up most recently with Kayleigh McEnany refusing to take questions from CNN reporters, to whom she referred as "activists." Along the way, Trump's communications team eventually stopped holding daily press briefings at all.

After all of that, as presidential historian Michael Beschloss put it, Psaki's level-headedness and clear respect for the truth immediately made her the "first non-weird White House Press Secretary in four years."

Fashion icon and former First Lady Michelle Obama attended the Biden-Harris inauguration on Wednesday, showing her support for the new administration's highly-anticipated and historic day. When it came to her outfit, Obama did not disappoint donning a magenta-colored jacket with matching monochromatic turtleneck sweater and wide-leg trousers. She completed the chic look with a gold belt, black leather gloves, a simple Christy Rilling black silk mask, and suede block-heeled boots by Stuart Weitzman; she wore her hair down in bouncy curls for the occasion.

Obama's outfit was designed by Sergio Hudson, a Black designer from South Carolina who also dressed the Vice President-elect on Wednesday. Hudson explained on The Bakari Sellers Podcast that Obama's outfit was inspired by a look from his Fall '20 collection.

"We did the pants instead a dress, and we did the top as a sweater instead of a dress," he said. "And, it’s pretty much the exact same look and we dropped the coat to the floor just for a little bit more drama, and that’s how we got where we got."

Purple was clearly the color of the day, with Vice President-elect wearing a bright violet jacket paired with her signature pearl necklace and purple gloves. Former Secretary of State and First Lady Hillary Clinton donned the color head-to-toe wearing an inky purple pantsuit, while Sen. Elizabeth Warren tied a lilac scarf around her neck. Purple is typically meant to represent bipartisanship—a clear cornerstone of the new administration after four years of divisiveness.

\Meanwhile, incoming First Lady Dr. Jill Biden stood out in blue for the big day, opting for a wool tweed coat and dress by American designer Alexandra O’Neil of Markarian.

People were thrilled to see the Obamas there alongside the Bidens (who, of course, served as the Vice President and Second Lady during their years in the White House).

Obama's tenure in the White House was marked by her flawless style which focused on up-and-coming American designers—J.Crew and Jason Wu were favorite of the former FLOTUS. For her husband's first inauguration in 2009, Obama wore a custom Isabel Toledo dress and coat.

Obama's stylist Meredith Koop took to Instagram the day after the inauguration to reveal more about the decisions behind the outfit and to celebrate the success of the look. "When MO returned afterwards, she said, 'I was so comfortable!' Literal music to my ears," Koop penned on social media. "I have learned to respect her consistent sense of practicality and pragmatism (Capricorn) dressing her in pieces she can live, move and inspire in." (Koop and Obama have worked together since 2010.)

Koop revealed that she immediately knew she wanted pants for the day: "Ah, the liberation of pants! No skirts, no dresses. Practical beautiful pants." And because she wanted to channel "sleek, chic and modern" she opted for dark, jewel tones and blacks and grays instead of brighter hues.

She dubbed the First Lady's outfit as "wineberry plum" and then revealed that it wasn't a political statement to opt for "bi-partisan purple" as many outlets had assumed.

"That’s a cute story, but it wasn’t the intention," she wrote.

Koop also explained that she had first considered styling Obama in matching plum-dyed shoes, mask, and gloves but decided "last minute" to go with black accessories. "It felt modern and more how women tend to dress," Koop said.

While the stylist offered up plenty of praise to Hudson for his "exceptional" designs, she also gave most of the credit for the look to Obama herself, saying that the clothes simply allowed the former FLOTUS to stand out and represent who she is to America.

"This particular outfit is about the woman wearing it more than anything," Koop wrote. "She is powerful and she needs to move. She is stunning and she represents what is possible. She is relatable and she is aspirational. She has consistently articulated over the years what has been in the hearts and minds of so many. She has taken a look at the rule book and turned the page. She leads, she inspires and she slays."

I am once again asking you to apply an extremely versatile photo of Bernie Sanders to a multitude of situations in your life—because, yet again, the Vermont senator has gone viral for merely being his 79-year-old self. Sanders' latest meme-able event arrived almost exactly a year after his last, the still-applicable "I am once again asking you" moment from a late 2019 fundraising video. Upon his arrival at the Jan. 20 inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as the nation's new president and vice president, Sanders plopped down in a folding chair far away from the rest of the audience (social distancing king!), burrowed into his coat and cozy-looking knit mittens, and waited for the festivities to begin. And thus, a meme was born.

As with previous widely circulated photos of Sanders, the most relatable thing about this snapshot is the septuagenarian's constant air of no-nonsense grumpiness and a general vibe of being immediately over whatever is happening if it doesn't directly pertain to his legislative goals—in the same way that, say, you might be incredibly over a party if you're just not in a partying mood. That vibe, plus Sanders' admirable dedication to COVID protocols, just might qualify this incredible photo as not only the first truly great meme of 2021, but also a perfect encapsulation of this particular moment in history.

In an added bonus, viewers have noticed that Sanders appears to be wearing the exact same Burton coat in his 2021 meme as he was in the fundraising video that soon became his 2020 "I am once again asking you" meme. That relatively casual parka (especially compared to the stunning designer coats donned by pretty much everyone else at the inauguration) and the manilla folder Sanders was clutching throughout the ceremony also contributed to a general sense that, as one Twitter user wrote, "Bernie dressed like the inauguration is on his to do list today but ain't his whole day."

As for the mittens, according to BuzzFeed News reporter Ruby Cramer on Twitter, they were gifted to Sanders by a Vermont teacher who made them out of repurposed wool sweaters and recycled plastic bottles. If you had "Bernie Sanders becomes a sustainable fashion icon" on your 2021 bingo card, go ahead and cross it out.

And now, without any further ado, please enjoy the best applications of Sanders' inauguration vibe:

• Prince Harry—or rather a photo of Prince Harry—made an appearance at Joe Biden and Kamala Harris' inauguration.
• The photo was spotted in the background of a photo of Biden speaking to Bill and Hillary Clinton at Arlington National Cemetery.
• Harry is good friends with Jill Biden, and the president has joked about their friendship.

Prince Harry might not have attended Joe Biden and Kamala Harris's inauguration in person, but he still managed to make a surprise appearance—in the form of one very large photo.

As CNN reports, Biden and Harris visited Arlington National Cemetery after they were sworn in, where they laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Solider alongside former presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Biden spoke with Bill and Hillary Clinton in the cemetery's Memorial Display Room, as the Independent reports. Clinton staff member Jon Davidson posted a photo of their conversation on Twitter, captioning it, "It’s a new day in America." 

Royal fans were quick to spot one detail in the background: A large photo of Prince Harry in his British Army uniform. According to the Independent, said photo was taken during Harry's 2013 visit to the Arlington National Cemetery. Observe:

Harry and Biden have actually met in person: They reportedly first met during Harry's 2013 visit to the U.S., while Jill Biden attended the first Invictus Games in London in 2014. Both Jill and Joe Biden subsequently attended the Invictus Games in 2016 and 2017, held in Orlando and Toronto respectively.

In fact, the then-future president joked about Harry and Jill's close bond at the 2016 Orlando games. "Jill went to London for the last Games," he said. "She spent too much damn time with Prince Harry."

It may have been their grandfather's day, but the Biden grandkids stole the show. On Wednesday evening, four of the Biden grandkids—Naomi, Finnegan, Maisy, and Natalie—plus Biden's daughter Ashley dressed up and posed for photos at the Lincoln Memorial as they celebrated the new president. A photo shared by White House reporter Jennifer Epstein showed the five of them together, with Finnegan and Natalie in Markarian gowns—the same brand, founded by New York designer Alexandra O'Neill, that was worn by Jill Biden earlier in the day. (Maisy's pink gown is Rodarte, and Ashley's tux is Ralph Lauren.)

Here's Epstein's photo, captioned: "The older Biden grandkids, plus Ashley Biden in a chic tux, take pictures at the Lincoln Memorial." (Also, I need to talk about Ashley's tux and popped collar, like...right now? I'm secretly hoping she was inspired by Kristen Stewart's suit look in Happiest Season.)

She followed it up with a second photo, captioned: "And then Jill Biden joined them and they admired her corsage."

Here's another look at their outfits, though they're wearing coats here (I mean, it's January in D.C.):

(Also, after we're done talking about Ashley's tux and popped collar and Chloe Gosselin pumps, I need to gush at length about Maisy's amazing sneakers look.)

We also got another peek at their outfits as they watched the fireworks (and enjoyed a casual live performance from Katy Perry of "Firework"):

The Biden grandkids already had a show-stopping fashion day, so this is just the cherry on top. (Honorable mention for First Daughter fashion goes to newly minted Second Daughter Ella Emhoff, who channeled RBG in sparkles and a white collar.) Here are the Biden kids and grandkids earlier in the day at the inauguration ceremony for their grandfather (they call him Pop-Pop, if you wondered):

I, for one, am looking forward to four years of multiple White House fashion stars and also not lying awake to worry about someone (cough) having access to the nuclear codes. What a day!

Shop the Bidens' Looks

If you never quite got over your dismay at Donald Trump's lack of a presidential pet—he's one of just four commanders-in-chief who neglected to bring a furry friend with them to the Oval Office, and the first since James K. Polk in the mid-1800s—you can finally breathe a sigh of relief. Two very good boys moved into the White House with President Joe Biden after his and Vice President Kamala Harris' inauguration on Jan. 20. Biden and his wife, Dr. Jill, are the humans of Major and Champ Biden, two German shepherds aged 2 and 12, respectively. The First Family seems to take their role as pet-owners very seriously, and were rewarded for their high canine approval ratings with the launch of the "Dog Lovers for Joe" movement ahead of the election.

Major and Champ are in great company as First Pets: They're joining an exclusive club that includes, among many other past pets-in-chief, the Obamas' two Portuguese Water Dogs, Sunny and Bo; JFK's hamsters, cat, canary, dogs, ponies, and parakeets; and, of course, Calvin Coolidge's shockingly well-trained raccoon, Rebecca.

The four-legged icons have also already been immortalized in book form, even before strutting their stuff as First Pets. On Jan. 19, the day before they took up residence in the East Wing, YA writer Joy McCullough and illustrator Sheyda Abvabi Best published a children's book called Champ and Major: First Dogs, which follows Champ and Major on their journey to the White House. 

Here's everything you need to know about Major and Champ Biden now that they've been sworn into office (not really, but can you imagine?!).

Champ Biden

The Bidens got Champ from a Pennsylvania breeder in late 2008, after Jill promised her husband that they could welcome a dog into the family after that year's election was over, Politico reported at the time. The family announced on Christmas Day that they had named the puppy Champ, after the nickname Biden's father often used to motivate him to get back up after being knocked down. They reportedly chose a German shepherd because Biden had owned, trained, and showed them since he was a child.

Champ already knows his way around Washington, D.C., after spending eight years living in the capital while Biden served as vice president. During that time, he made regular appearances with his humans at official events and may or may not have caused the Bidens to replace the carpeting in the vice-presidential residence with easier-to-clean hardwood floors. And in what may be the purest thing to ever happen in Washington, Biden made a habit of handing out miniature plush versions of Champ (!!!) to kids he met through his vice-presidential duties.

Champ isn't just a president's best friend—he's also Biden's fiercest protector and biggest supporter. "[He] thinks he's Secret Service, and he is," Biden said of his elder dog during a campaign stop in Iowa in 2019. Champ also appeared in a very convincing video a few days before the election in which he implored people to vote for his human, and you simply cannot convince me that it's not what clinched the win for Biden.

Major Biden

Champ's younger brother Major made history after the already groundbreaking inauguration, as he became the first-ever shelter dog to live at the White House. The Bidens adopted Major in 2018 from the Delaware Humane Association. According to a post the shelter shared on Facebook at the time, the Bidens were fostering Major when they decided to fully adopt him instead.

"Major was 1 of 6 puppies who were brought to DHA after coming in contact with something toxic in their home," the shelter wrote in another 2018 post. "Once we posted about them for your help, Joe Biden caught wind of them and reached out immediately. The rest is history!"

The younger Biden pup has remained a proud alumnus of the DHA, which hosted a fundraising "Indoguration" in his honor a few days before his dad was sworn in as POTUS. "From shelter pup at the Delaware Humane Association to First Dog at the White House, Major Biden is barking proof that every dog can live the American dream," the association wrote in its event announcement.

The livestreamed event raised an impressive $200,000 for the humane society on Jan. 17. It was emceed by Today show host Jill Martin, included interviews with several rescue cats campaigning to be the Bidens' next pet (Jill has previously said she'd like to add a feline friend to their family), and also featured a rousing rendition of "(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?" by none other than Josh Groban. Yes, really.

Major showed up in the Bidens' lives at the perfect time, right when they had begun looking to expand their family as a way to give Champ an energy boost. "My vet said, 'Your shepherd's 12 years old. He's getting slow. The best thing to keep him going is get another little puppy,'" Biden shared during that same 2019 Iowa campaign stop.

And though the Bidens have not shared where Major got his name, or if they even chose it themselves, NBC News notes that it likely holds sentimental value for the president-elect, whose late son Beau Biden was a major in the Delaware National Guard.

It's a statement that was used by nearly every journalist today (myself included), but one that I will never grow tired of writing: Today, history was made. Today, Kamala Harris became the first female, Black, and South Asian vice president of the United States of America. It's a moment more than worthy of all of the articles, retweets, and phrasal repetitions. It's a win that was hard fought, both for Vice President Harris and for American democracy.

Today, history was made. Tonight, we celebrate.

And in that vein, the The Presidential Inaugural Committee is hosting a "Celebrating America" special streaming across major platforms. The event had star-studded, packed with performances from Demi Lovato, John Legend, Bruce Springsteen, and more, but it was the words from our new VP that was truly music to my ears.

In case you missed it, read her moving words here: 

Good evening. It is my honor to be here. To stand on the shoulders of those who came before. To speak tonight as your Vice President.

In many ways, this moment embodies our character as a nation. It demonstrates who we are.

Even in dark times, we not only dream, we do. We not only see what has been, we see what can be. We shoot for the moon, and then we plant our flag on it. We are bold, fearless, and ambitious. We are undaunted in our belief that we shall overcome; that we will rise up. This is American aspiration.

In the middle of the civil war, Abraham Lincoln saw a better future and built it with land grant colleges and the transcontinental railroad. In the middle of the civil rights movement, Dr. King fought for racial justice and economic justice.

American Aspiration is what drove the women in this nation, throughout history, to demand equal rights. And the authors of the Bill of Rights, to claim freedoms that had rarely been written down before.

A great experiment takes great determination. The will to do the work, and then the wisdom to keep refining, keep tinkering, keep perfecting. The same determination is being realized in America today. I see it in the scientists who are transforming the future. I see it in the parents who are nurturing generations to come, in the innovators and educators, in everyone, everywhere, who is building a better life for themselves, their families, and their communities.

This too, is American aspiration. This is what President Joe Biden has called upon us to summon now. The courage to see beyond crisis. To do what is hard, to do what is good, to unite, to believe in ourselves, believe in our country, believe in what we can do together.

Thank you, and may God bless America.

Truly, words we all needed to hear.

It’s no secret that this year’s inauguration looks quite different from past iterations. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, both the ceremonial oath-taking and subsequent parade took place without crowds. To add to the eerie nature of the day, the National Guard has been deployed in Washington as a response to the siege at the Capitol Building two weeks ago today. Even the outgoing president chose to boycott the event, adding a cherry on top of an already strange affair.

In the Before Times, the President, Vice President, and their star-studded guests would gather for an inaugural ball to féte the new resident of the White House. This year, however, there will be no ball due to coronavirus concerns.

Tony Allen, the Inaugural Committee’s chief executive, told the Washington Post, “We definitely want to honor the big, broad traditions of the inaugural,” He continued, “But we also want to be sensitive to the realities of the moment, have safety protocols first and foremost.”

This means we missed out on the president and first lady’s dance, cameos from the first family, and a who’s who of the administration’s famous friends and supporters. Personally, I am feeling the loss of Michelle Obama at tonight’s event—after today’s stunning purple outfit, I can only imagine the power of the gown she would have worn tonight.

Instead, this evening featured a celebratory concert hosted by Tom Hanks. Live moments at the Lincoln Memorial—including a performance by Bruce Springsteen and a speech from the incoming president—were spliced with pre-recorded messages from service members, essential workers, and public figures. John Legend, Demi Lovato, and Bon Jovi also performed.

As President-elect Joe Biden Jr. heads to the White House, he's as close with his family as ever, especially his grandchildren. Even during the pandemic, Joe has said, he makes the effort to speak with his family all the time, especially his grandkids Naomi, Finnegan, Maisy, Natalie, and Robert: "Every day I'm in contact with every one of my grandkids, my son and my daughter, but by distance," he explained. "As a matter of fact, my son Beau's children live a mile away as the crow flies...They walk over through the woods and through a neighborhood, and they sit out in the backyard in two chairs, and I sit up in the porch, and we have our conversations, because I'm not allowed to go hug them. I miss it."

This closeness hasn't changed since Joe won the White House. Maisy has said: "He calls me, then calls Naomi, then he calls Finn, then he calls Natalie, then he calls Ashley, and then he calls little Hunter." His older grandchildren, in particular, have recently made appearances for him and spoken about how close they are with the incoming president. So who are they, and what do we know about them so far?

Naomi Biden

Naomi is the oldest daughter of Joe's younger son, Hunter Biden. Named after Joe's young daughter who tragically died alongside his first wife in a car crash, she's passionate about politics. When Joe was vice president, she joined him on international trips including to New Zealand and China. She's a vocal supporter of her grandfather, both on Twitter and Instagram, and it's thanks to her that we get peeks into her life and the lives of Biden's other grandkids (like here, with sister Finnegan):

She's dating another law student, Peter Neal (Naomi graduated from Columbia Law in May), and the two recently collaborated on a quiz to help people understand if they qualified for aid under the CARES Act. It's so far helped more than 10,000 people get assistance from the $2.2 trillion stimulus package.

The pair told MTV News it took a total of almost 48 hours to read through all 335 pages of the stimulus package, create the quiz, and code the website. The only time they took a break? To grab a causal three hours of sleep, "It was either that or watch Curb Your Enthusiasm for the third time in a row," Naomi told MTV News.

During the DNC, she tweeted about how proud she was to be Joe's granddaughter, and proud to be an American:

Back in 2018, Tiffany Trump posted a photo of the two of them during a weekend trip in the Hamptons on her Instagram story. If you’re wondering how they crossed paths, both of them attended the University of Pennsylvania together at the same time.

Finnegan Biden

Finnegan's Instagram is private, and she's not as vocal as her older sister, but she also traveled with Joe internationally while he was VP and even joined him onstage during the Nevada caucus. She's named after Joe's mother, Jean Finnegan, and is a student at the University of Pennsylvania. She, too, is the daughter of Hunter Biden.

She appeared during an Iowa rally in February, and Joe mentioned her specifically:

“I would like to introduce you to my granddaughter Finnegan Biden. The reason I asked Finnegan—grandfathers are always allowed to embarrass their granddaughters—that goes along with the territory...But granddaughters not only love their grandpops but they like them. And that’s the great thing. Thank you, baby.”

In an interview on the day of her grandfather's inauguration, Finnegan mentioned how grateful she was to Sasha and Malia Obama for their friendship and support. "Maisy and I and Natalie and Naomi have had the privilege of being able to see two of our friends navigate eight (years) of what was really difficult, and they did so, so beautifully...And they came out so grounded and humble, and they're so smart and driven, so I think we can only take advice from them."

Maisy Biden

The youngest of Hunter's daughters, Maisy also traveled with Joe as he worked, including abroad in Bogota, Columbia.

She's particularly close with Sasha Obama. When the two graduated high school together, the two families celebrated, according to Biden: “Her best friend is Sasha Obama. Barack and Jill and the whole family, we had a whole get-together." The two apparently played on the same basketball team together, and none other than President Obama has praised her skills, predicting that she may one day play for the WNBA. Maisy and Sasha apparently joined Joe at the FIFA Women's World Cup Canada in 2015.

Maisy says her grandfather prioritizes her games, even when he was serving as vice president. "He came to, like, every single one of my soccer games, lacrosse games, basketball games. And it was always funny seeing him show up when I was like, 'I think I just saw you on TV about 30 minutes ago, how did you just end up here?' And he was like, 'Don't worry, I knew it was a big game today.'"

The whole (extended) family got together when Maisy graduated in 2019, commemorated (of course) by Naomi:

In order for the family to get together, Joe had to skip the June 2019 Iowa Democrats Hall of Fame Dinner, which received some backlash from some politicians. He responded to the comments, saying:

"My granddaughter was graduating. It was my daughter's birthday. I would skip inauguration for that...I guess some folks were surprised I made that choice, but I don't know why. There are some things more important than running for president—and my daughter and granddaughter are two of them. So I'll make the same decision every time."

More recently, Maisy has taken to TikTok to share ingenious animations, lip syncs, and inspired (non-alcoholic) drink recipes.

Natalie Biden

Natalie is the older child of the late Beau Biden—Joe's older son who passed away from brain cancer in 2015. She's younger and more private, but she's been more visible lately in support of her grandfather.

Natalie recently spoke about her grandmother Jill Biden during the DNC, saying, “I would say she’s not your average grandmother,” and adding, "She's a prankster, she's very mischievous."

"When she goes on a run, sometimes she'll find, like, a dead snake and she'll pick it up and put it in a bag and she'll use it to scare someone," she said, laughing.

Back in October, Natalie and Naomi teamed up with model Kaia Gerber to encourage young and first time voters for an election Q&A on Instagram. Although Naomi is too young to vote, she noted that our social media platforms have the power to "inform people, and, like, tell people what we stand for."

Robert "Hunter" Biden

Robert is the younger child of Beau, and is known as "Hunter" in a nod to his uncle. Robert has traveled with his grandfather (like the above at the 2008 DNC when Hunter was just a kid). He's now older, and occasionally appears on Naomi's feed:

And he also appeared in a 2020 DNC video of the grandchildren reciting the pledge of allegiance:

His Other Grandchildren

Joe has two other grandchildren, too. In 2018, Lunden Alexis Roberts gave birth to a child, and in 2020 it was proven that Joe's son Hunter was the father; He agreed to pay child support.

Hunter also married Melissa Cohen, a filmmaker, in 2019—and their son was born in March 2020, a “beautiful and healthy baby boy” who came just at the start of the pandemic. It's not clear if Joe has met either child yet (the pandemic may have made in-person visits challenging), and for obvious reasons there's privacy around both.

All Joe's grandchildren are supportive of "Pop-Pop."

Naomi, Finnegan, Maisy, and Natalie Biden spoke at the DNC. From left to right: Maisy, Finnegan, Naomi, and Natalie. In the video, they talk about how Joe was worried about their wellbeing and media scrutiny if he ran for president in 2020, and how they gave their full support.

After Joe officially declared he was running for president, Naomi shared that the grandkids bought him a pint of one of his favorite flavors of ice cream, vanilla, to celebrate:

When Biden's granddaughters were interviewed in August for the DNC, they said this about their grandfather: "He's always eating ice cream. Usually, it's vanilla...the Breyer's that have half chocolate, half vanilla. He likes ice cream in hidden ways." Natalie chimed in, "Eating it in the freezer so that my grandma doesn't see."

Post-election, Naomi tweeted this cute throwback image of her grandparents before the results were called, writing, "They’ve come a long, long, way together."

And of course, when the results came forward that their grandfather had won Pennsylvania and officially became the president-elect, a group hug commenced. According to NBC's Mike Memoli, the family was "enjoying the warm fall weather on their backyard patio Saturday morning when from inside their home, a chorus of applause erupted."

Naomi then shared this heartwarming photo of all of them in a group hug with their smiling grandfather. She captioned it "11.07.20", signifying the historic day.

It's a momentous day for Americans. After a tumultuous four years of the Trump administration, Joe Biden will officially become the 46th president of the United States, and Kamala Harris will become the first Black, South Asian, female vice president of the United States. As the new leaders of the free world take their oath of office in Washington, D.C., we're rounding up the best photos from the historic day, ahead.

President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris attend church service on the morning of the inauguration

President-elect Joe Biden and soon-to-be First Lady Dr. Jill Biden

The Harris-Emhoff family at the morning church service

Views of the socially-distant inauguration crowd

Chasten Buttigieg and Pete Buttigieg

Senator Elizabeth Warren

Senator Bernie Sanders

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her husband Paul Pelosi

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and former Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao

Meena Harris, niece of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, in Ulla Johnson with Ana Khouri and Temple St. Clair jewelry

Meena Harris, Bruce Mann, and Senator Elizabeth Warren taking a selfie

President-elect Joe Biden, Dr. Jill Biden, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, and Doug Emhoff arrive on the East Front of the U.S. Capitol

President-elect Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden sharing a moment together on the East Front of the U.S. Capitol

Arriving at the inauguration

Senator Cory Booker and Rosario Dawson

Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrive at the inauguration

Former President George W. Bush and former First Lady Laura Bush arrive at the inauguration

Former First Lady Michelle Obama and former President Barack Obama arrive at the inauguration

Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen Pence, arrive at the inauguration

Dr. Jill Biden and President-elect Joe Biden are introduced at the inauguration

Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett

National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman prepares to read her poem at the inauguration

Doug Emhoff and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris are introduced at the inauguration

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and Vice President Mike Pence

Former President Barack Obama being greeted by Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff

Senator Amy Klobuchar begins the inauguration ceremony

Senator Bernie Sanders creates the meme of the year

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris waiting to take the oath of office

Lady Gaga getting ready to sing the national anthem

Lady Gaga singing the national anthem

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris waiting to take the oath of office alongside her family

Kamala Devi Harris is sworn as the first female, Black, South Asian vice president of the United States of America

Kamala Devi Harris is sworn as the first female, Black, South Asian vice president of the United States of America

Vice President Harris hugs the second gentleman, Doug Emhoff

Vice President Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff smiling at each other

Jennifer Lopez prepares to sing a rendition of "This Land Is My Land" and "America the Beautiful"

Jennifer Lopez prepares to sing a rendition of "This Land Is My Land" and "America the Beautiful"

Jennifer Lopez getting ready to sing a rendition of "This Land Is My Land" and "America the Beautiful"

Joe Biden's family watches as he gets sworn in as president

Joe Biden is sworn in as the 46th president of the United States of America

The Biden family embraces after President Biden is sworn in

First Lady Dr. Jill Biden comforts President Biden

Rev. Dr. Sylvester Beaman speaks at the inauguration ceremony

President Biden gives a speech after he's sworn in as the 46th president

Garth Brooks performs at the ceremony

National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman reads her breathaking poem during the inauguration ceremony

Lady Gaga embraces former President Barack Obama after the ceremony

Lady Gaga and Jennifer Lopez speaking with Hillary Clinton

Vice President Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff embracing former First Lady Michelle Obama and former President Barack Obama

A special moment between former President Barack Obama and Vice President Kamala Harris

Vice President Harris hugs House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi greets former First Lady Michelle Obama and former President Barack Obama

Former President George W. Bush, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former President Barack Obama, and former First Lady Michelle Obama

The Biden's and the Obama's embrace each other after the ceremony

Vice President Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff say their goodbyes to former Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen Pence

Vice President Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff watch the former vice president and his wife leave

We did it, Joe!!!

At the Jan. 20 inauguration in D.C., Kamala Harris will be the first female and first Black woman to ever hold the office of vice president. The California senator, who was running in the Democratic presidential race before dropping out in December and being tapped by Biden as his VP, has long been vocal about many key issues, including abortion and women's reproductive health care.

Abortion has been a hot-button issue in this country for what feels like forever, and everyone has opinions on it—but you might be wondering where Harris stands on the subject. Let's dive in, shall we?

Harris wants to codify Roe v. Wade.

If you're familiar with women's reproductive rights, then you'll be familiar with Roe v. Wade. The 1973 Supreme Court case made it illegal for states to ban abortions, but ever since then, the ruling has been threatened continuously.

It is still possible for state legislation to limit or restrict access to the medical procedure, which is why some politicians want to codify the ruling. Codifying the ruling would grant a woman's right to an abortion would be a federal law and protected from being overturned if it reached the Supreme Court.

In 2019, The New York Times asked democratic presidential candidates to complete a survey on where they stood on certain abortion issues. Harris and Biden said yes to codifying Roe.

In August, Harris publicly supported Joe Biden's plans to codify the case. "As states across our nation continue to attack reproductive rights, especially abortion, it's more important than ever we have a president who will defend and expand these rights," she tweeted. "As president, @JoeBiden will codify Roe v. Wade and protect the constitutional right to choose."

Harris wants to repeal the Hyde Amendment.

Along with numerous other Democrats, Harris has pushed to repeal the Hyde Amendment, which blocks federal Medicaid funding for abortion services unless the person's continued pregnancy will put their life in danger or the baby is the product of rape or incest.

During a July 2019 debate, Harris challenged Biden on his record on the Hyde Amendment. The presidential nominee, known for backing the amendment, suddenly changed his mind in June.

"You made a decision for years to withhold resources to poor women to reproductive health care, including women who were the victims of rape and incest," said Harris to Biden. "Do you now say that you have evolved, and you regret that?"

The decades-old ban affects people with low incomes, people of color, young people, immigrants, and anyone else who relies on Medicaid for healthcare coverage. To put it into perspective, Medicaid provides coverage to 1 in 5 women between the ages of 15-44.

(You can go to allaboveall.org to learn how you can take action, btw.)

Major pro-choice organizations are backing Harris.

While in the U.S. Senate, Harris maintained a 100 percent rating from the reproductive rights group NARAL. According to NARAL's website, they highly rate "candidates who make women's health care, including abortion access, a priority."

Harris has also received support from Emily's List, an organization dedicated to getting pro-choice women elected to office. Its president, Stephanie Schriock, even made a statement when Harris' ended her campaign for president, saying:

"Kamala Harris is a fighter for the people, and she carried that grit throughout her presidential campaign. Her historic presence in the race—as one of the few women of color to run for president in history—brought a critical perspective and voice to conversations about America's future."

And when Biden and Harris won the election, Planned Parenthood wrote on its website: "Planned Parenthood has champions in the White House again." It added: "Our country’s leaders once again understand that abortion is health care."

Harris co-sponsored the Women's Health Protection Act.

Harris has continued to be vocal about the Women's Health Protection Act, which is similar to the Voting Rights Act but geared towards abortion access. If the Act passed, states would have to get pre-clearance from the federal government before implementing more abortion-based restrictions in their states and counties.

In May 2019, Harris spoke about the act at town hall event, saying, "Are we going to go back to the days of back-alley abortions? Women died before we had Roe v. Wade in place. On this issue, I'm kind of done."

If passed, the act could stop legislation like the "fetal heartbeat" bill, which bans abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected. (Tennessee lawmakers passed their version of this last June.) Sometimes, a heartbeat can be detected as early as six weeks into a pregnancy—before many people know they're pregnant.

Forty-three other senators currently co-sponsor the Women's Health Protection Act.

Harris warned Trump's Supreme Court nomination could threaten reproductive rights.

Eight days after the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, President Trump announced he would be nominating Judge Amy Coney Barrett to fill Ginsburg's seat.

“Judge Barrett has a long record of opposing abortion and reproductive rights,” said Harris on the nomination and what this could mean to women everywhere per the Independent. “There is no other issue that so disrespects and dishonors the work of Justice Ginsburg’s life than undoing the seminal decision in the court’s history that made it clear a woman has a right to make decisions about her own body.”

During Barrett's confirmation hearings, Harris repeatedly pushed Barrett on her views on issues like abortion, but Barrett repeatedly referred to the "Ginsburg rule." The reference was to the late-justices standard that a judge provide no hints, forecasts, or previews of how they would vote on cases.

Harris argued with Barrett on this reasoning, explaining that Judge Ginsburg, during her own 1993 Supreme Court confirmation hearing, voiced her opinion on topics like abortion.

Despite not asking Harris her opinion about whether she was anti or pro-choice, the senator believed her actions spoke her beliefs. "I would suggest that we not pretend that we don't know how this nominee views a woman's right to choose or make her own decisions," Harris said.

She's never expressed support for late-term abortions.

At the only vice-presidential debate, host Susan Page pressed on Mike Pence what would become of Roe v. Wade if Judge Barrett was confirmed and what he thought of the case.

The Vice President responded, "I couldn't be more proud to serve as vice president to a president who stands without apology for the sanctity of human life. I'm pro-life. I don't apologize for it." Adding, "Joe Biden and Kamala Harris support taxpayer funding of abortion all the way up to the moment of birth."

This isn't true. Numerous fact-checkers moderating the event dubbed the statement false, as Harris nor Biden have never voiced their support for abortion up to the moment of birth.

Some anti-choice groups such as the Susan B. Anthony List went as far as to release political advertisements using those same claims. Facebook later blocked the ad due to its false nature.

When asked later the same question about the future of Roe v. Wade, Harris responded, "I will always fight for a woman's right to make a decision about her own body. It should be her decision."

It didn't take long for the "controversy" to begin. Just days after Kamala Harris announced her bid to become president in 2020, the racist attacks on Harris' eligibility started. "Kamala Harris is NOT eligible!" cried right-wing activist Jacob Wohl on Twitter. Later, when Joe Biden asked Harris to be his vice president, with the pair ultimately winning the 2020 election to become president and president-elect, the attacks started up again. To be clear: The only technical requirements a presidential candidate must meet are that he or she is 1) a natural-born citizen of the United States, 2) a resident for 14 years, and 3) 35 years of age or older. Wohl was claiming that Harris is not, in fact, a "natural-born American" (we'll get into the specifics shortly).

But first, let's break this down once and for all: Kamala Harris has birthright citizenship, and in the United States, that makes her eligible to president, vice-president, or any other office she chooses. (She's also deeply qualified to all of those roles, for what it's worth, but unlike the status of her citizenship, that isn't encoded in the Constitution.)

Speaking of the Constitution, let's start there. Per the Fourteenth Amendment, Section 1, which was added in 1868:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

In other words: If you are born in America, you are an American. That's the way America works, and has been working for more than 150 years. (Interestingly, the U.S. is one of only a handful countries that upholds birthright citizenship, but that's neither here or there when it comes to Harris.)

Of course, that hasn't stopped certain people from debating this particular point—particularly, narrowing down the definition of natural born citizen. Courtesy of a commentary piece on the San Antonio Express News: "As a constitutionalist, I believe the definition of a natural-born citizen is one who was born on American soil of two parents who were American citizens at the time of their birth." This pulls from information in a book the framers of the Constitution used (information that, it should be noted, did not make it into the Constitution).

The piece continues: "Based on the information I have found, neither of Sen. Kamala Harris’ parents were American citizens at the time of her birth. Therefore, I believe it is impossible for her to be a natural-born citizen, which is one of the requirements to be president."

But, to be fully clear here, by the definition currently written in the Constitution, Harris is eligible to serve her country in office. Changing or expanding the current wording just to invalidate her seems...let's call it excessive. But this kind of attempt to create "disqualification on a technicality" helps spread of misinformation around Harris's citizenship and her career.

Which brings me to "birtherism," a term that you might remember came out of Trump slinging falsehoods at then-candidate Obama over and over again in 2008. Trump, it should be noted here, was not even a politician at the time, merely a real-estate mogul and reality TV star who decided to declare that Obama was not eligible to be president, spreading lies about his place of birth that were categorically false. But Trump's conspiracy theory thrilled an army of right-wingers. Even after Trump rescinded the comment in 2016, they continued to attack America's former First Family for being "ineligible," which is just a euphemism here for "not white."

The "birtherism" controversy surrounding Obama—if "controversy" is the right term for a bigoted conspiracy—is grounded in racism. It always has been. This is also the case with Harris. Birtherism is a lie designed to perceive Americans of color as "un-American."

Let me be as clear as possible: Kamala Harris was born in the United States (Oakland, California to be exact), thus making her a citizen. Her parents were both immigrants—her mom from Chennai, India, her dad from Jamaica—and when they divorced, Harris spent her teenage years in Canada before returning to the U.S. for college. These are all facts that have no bearing on Harris' citizenship, but I mention them to explain why Harris, and only Harris, is being subjected to "birther" claims. Her parents are immigrants, and Harris herself is a woman of color, and even though conservatives routinely tout a route to citizenship as the American Dream writ large, a slice of the American population believe these facts make Harris too "other" to serve them in public office.

By all means, people will and should provide plenty of reasons why they don't want Harris to be vice president. That, too, is enshrined in the Constitution—a right to a democratic electoral process. Say what you want about her—freedom of speech, too, is enshrined in the Constitution—but please make no mistake: To say that she may not be eligible for office is wrong. This is a fact.

At every stage of President-elect's Joe Biden's candidacy, his late son Beau Biden has been on his mind. Biden has said that he selected vice president-elect Kamala Harris in part because Beau liked and trusted her. On the eve of his inauguration, Biden gave an emotional farewell speech to the state of Delaware, saying through tears: “Ladies and gentleman, I only have one regret: He's not here. Because we should be introducing him as president.”

Beau, who had served as attorney general of Delaware and is survived by his wife Hallie and children Natalie and Robert, passed away from brain cancer in 2015. At the time of his death, Beau was 46 years old.

Joe and his family picked the then-president Barack Obama to deliver the eulogy at Beau's funeral. In the moving speech, Obama said of Beau: "He did in 46 years what most of us couldn’t do in 146. He left nothing in the tank. He was a man who led a life where the means were as important as the ends. And the example he set made you want to be a better dad, or a better son, or a better brother or sister, better at your job, the better soldier. He made you want to be a better person."

Joe and Beau had always been close. As a young boy, Beau had been hospitalized along with his brother Hunter following a car accident that killed his mom and Joe's wife, Neilia, as well as Beau's 1-year-old sister Naomi. His father held his Senate swearing-in at Beau's hospital bedside, and was dubbed "Amtrak Joe" while serving in office thanks to his commitment to heading home to his boys after work via train.

"By focusing on my sons, I found my redemption," Joe said in a Yale commencement speech in 2015. "The incredible bond I have with my children is the gift I’m not sure I would have had, had I not been through what I went through."

Beau agreed with his father that the accident tightly bonded the family: "One of my earliest memories was being in that hospital, Dad always at our side. We, not the Senate, were all he cared about," Beau said at the Democratic National Convention in 2008.

Beau and his younger brother Hunter also shared a strong bond. Together the brothers went to Archmere Academy, the same Catholic high school their father attended. There Beau was called "The Sheriff" among friends. Hunter recalled to The New Yorker of his rule-following ways, "If we wanted to jump off a cliff into a watering hole, I would say, 'I'm ready, let's go,' and Beau would say, 'Wait, wait, wait, before we do it, make sure there aren't any rocks down there.'"

He was elected student body president with Hunter's help at school, who helped pass campaign flyers around school. "Dad knew that is what Beau wanted," said Hunter to The New Yorker of Beau's early interest in politics.

After college, Beau served in the military and won a Bronze Star. While serving as attorney general of Delaware, Beau announced that he would run for governor in 2016—until his diagnosis cut his burgeoning political career short.

In 2010, Beau had suffered a small stroke, and in 2013 he had a lesion removed from his brain. He underwent surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation to treat the cancer, but in 2015 his health rapidly declined over the course of a few weeks. Beau died in May 2015, at the age of 46. In a statement, the family wrote:

It is with broken hearts that Hallie, Hunter, Ashley, Jill and I announce the passing of our husband, brother and son, Beau, after he battled brain cancer with the same integrity, courage and strength he demonstrated every day of his life...The entire Biden family is saddened beyond words. We know that Beau’s spirit will live on in all of us—especially through his brave wife, Hallie, and two remarkable children, Natalie and Hunter.

Beau's death at a young age was a particularly public tragedy, since Joe was serving out his last years as Vice President at the time. Though rumors flew that Beau had encouraged his father to run for president on Beau's deathbed, Joe shot down the rumors in 60 Minutes interview in 2015. "Beau all along thought that I should run and I could win," he said. "But there was not what was sort of made out as kind of this Hollywood-esque thing that at the last minute Beau grabbed my hand and said, 'Dad, you've got to run, like, win one for the Gipper.' It wasn't anything like that."

In January on MSNBC's Morning Joe, the former Vice President tearfully recalled his late son saying, "Beau should be the one running for president, not me. Every morning I get up Joe, not a joke, and I think to myself, 'Is he proud of me?'"

In a New York Times article from 2019, Joe continued to actively connect with constituents over this issue. According to the article: "'Some politicians have a sixth sense for weakness,' said Mr. Israel, a New York Democrat. 'Some can sense power. Joe Biden has a sixth sense for people who are struggling.'"

When Joe announced his candidacy on The View, he made mention of the tragedies he's suffered, including the death of Beau. He has also brought Beau into his campaign speeches and event speeches of the past few weeks. "Beau cared a great deal about being here. You all know the loss of a loved one. Somehow, the pain fades, a little bit,” he said at a recent rally. And in Houston, he honored doctors who had treated Beau: "You were wonderful, wonderful to my family,” he said, according to NBC.

Biden has also made curing cancer one of his campaign pledges, which undoubtedly is connected to the loss of his beloved son.

Beau was a huge support for his father when he was running as vice president. In his 2017 memoir Promise Me, Dad Joe wrote about his son's calm demeanor and how it helped him before significant campaign events.

"Beau had a way of instilling courage and calming me," he wrote. "Beau would always grab my arm just before I walked onstage and pull me back toward him until I was looking into his eyes. 'Dad. Look at me. Look at me, Dad. Remember, Dad. Home base, Dad. Home base.'"

Joe even factored Beau into his decision to selected California Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate, who had a close relationship with his son. In an email to his supporters, he explained, "They were both Attorneys General at the same time. He had enormous respect for her and her work. I thought a lot about that as I made this decision. There is no one's opinion I valued more than Beau's and I'm proud to have Kamala standing with me on this campaign."

According to The Washington Post, Harris and Beau were so close, his closest staffers had a list of about 60 people that should be the first to know about his death, and she was on that list.

The vice president-elect still honors him today. On the fourth anniversary of his death, she tweeted, "Thinking of @JoeBiden, @DrBiden and the entire Biden family today. Beau Biden was my friend. We were AGs together, and you couldn't find a person who cared more deeply for his family, the nation he served, and the state of Delaware. Four years after his passing, I still miss him."

In Jill Biden's autobiography Where The Light Enters, Jill describes meeting Joe Biden's then-wife Neilia in the winter of 1972. "She had an easy, natural beauty," wrote Jill, adding that Neilia, then 30, had a "warm, genuine smile." Jill went on to describe learning one month later that Neilia and the couple's daughter, Naomi, had passed away suddenly in a car crash. "It was profoundly unfair," Jill wrote. "To take a mother from her children; to take a daughter from her father. Joe Biden had had everything, and in a horrible second, it was gone."

Years later, Joe spoke about the tragedy in a 2015 Yale commencement speech. He described how, in 1972, he had just been elected a senator to Delaware and was waiting to take office. "While I was in Washington hiring staff, I got a phone call," he said. "My wife and three children were Christmas shopping. A tractor-trailer broadsided them and killed my wife and killed my daughter."

Just weeks before he was sworn in, Joe was working at a borrowed office in Washington when he heard the news. In his 2008 memoir Promises to Keep, Joe wrote that he could feel something was wrong immediately. His sister, Valerie Biden Owens, was on the phone with their brother Jimmy when she turned white. After watching his sister get off the phone and suggest they take a plane back to Wilmington, Delaware because of a "slight accident," he could only respond with, "She's dead, isn't she?"

Neilia was 30 years old, and Naomi, known as "Amy," had just turned one. (Joe's granddaughter Naomi, now 26, is named in her honor.) Their two sons, Hunter and Beau, who were four and three years old, respectively, were in critical condition, leaving Joe forced to hold his Senate swearing-in at his sons' hospital bedside.

“The first memory I have is of lying in a hospital bed next to my brother,” said Hunter while delivering Beau's eulogy in 2015 who passed away from brain cancer. “I was almost three years old. I remember my brother who was one year and one day older than me, holding my hand, staring into my eyes, saying, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you’ over and over and over again.”

In his Yale commencement speech, Joe explained: "Many people have gone through things like that. But because I had the incredible good fortune of an extended family, grounded in love and loyalty, imbued with a sense of obligation imparted to each of us, I not only got help," he said. "By focusing on my sons, I found my redemption."

During his speech, Joe spoke movingly about the closeness he felt with his sons after the accident, noting: "The incredible bond I have with my children is the gift I’m not sure I would have had, had I not been through what I went through."

Joe had met Neilia by chance. During a spring break trip in 1964, he and a couple of his friends drove down to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for a couple of days. When boredom struck early on, they decided to book a round trip to Nassau, Bahamas for a change of scenery. When there, he and a couple of buddies snuck into an expensive hotel by wrapping a hotel towel around their waists and walking past the security guards. It was then he saw Syracuse student Neilia lying by the pool, recalled friends to The New York Times. “I’ve got the blonde,” said Joe to his friends.

He and Neilia hit it off and were married in 1966. “Once I had Neilia with me, it became more of a plan than a daydream,” Joe wrote in his memoir Promises to Keep. “Now I could see the picture whole.”

The years that followed the tragic passing of Neilia and Naomi were, of course, very difficult for Joe as he tried to try to balance the responsibilities of raising his sons on his own with the new pressures that came with being a member of the United States Senate. After the accident, Valerie moved in with her brother and his two sons in Wilmington and lived with them for four years. "They had lost their mom and their sister, so they cannot lose their father, and that’s what made him get out of bed in the morning," said Valerie to The New Yorker in 2014. With his sister's help, Joe found himself getting out of bed, getting ready to take the ninety-minute commute each way on Amtrak to Washington to fulfill his duty as Delaware's senator.

It had been Neilia who helped him get that seat. According to The News Journal, she was the “brains” of his campaign and one of his closest advisors.

At a 2012 event for U.S. military service members, Joe spoke of his grief, saying, "For the first time in my life, I understood how someone could consciously decide to commit suicide. Not because they were deranged, not because they were nuts, because they'd been to the top of the mountain and they just knew in their heart they'd never get there again, that it was...never going to be that way ever again." He continued, "Keep thinking what your husband or wife would want you to do. Keep thinking what it is, and keep remembering those kids of yours, or him or her the rest of their life, blood of my blood, bone of my bone, because, folks, it can and will get better."

Years later, Joe's meet-cute with Jill Jacobs in 1975 led to love, bringing him the strength that he so desperately needed after his massive personal loss. "She gave me back my life,” Joe said of Jill in his 2007 memoir Promises to Keep. “She made me start to think my family might be whole again.”

“My mom came along—I have two moms now—[she] came along in 1977 and rebuilt our family, and helped my dad rebuild our family,” Beau recalled in 2021.

Jill, knowing how deeply Hunter and Beau were affected by the tragic passing of their mother and sister, turned down Joe's first five marriage proposals. "Because by that time, of course, I had fallen in love with the boys, and I really felt that this marriage had to work," she told Vogue in 2016. "Because they had lost their mom, and I couldn’t have them lose another mother. So I had to be 100 percent sure.” When she was finally sure, the couple tied the knot in 1977, and in 1981, they welcomed their daughter Ashley into the world.

In 2015, Beau Biden—who had followed in the footsteps of his beloved father by becoming attorney general of Delaware—passed away from brain cancer. He was 46 at the time. “Beau Biden was, quite simply, the finest man any of us have ever known," Joe said in a statement at the time. Then-president Obama gave the eulogy at Beau's funeral, saying: "He was a good man. He did in 46 years what most of us couldn't do in 146."

Once again, Joe wrestled to find the good that could come of tragedy. He didn't end up running for president in 2016—he wrote in his book Promise Me, Dad that he was simply too overwhelmed by grief—but he did run in 2020, picking Kamala Harris to be his vice president in part because Beau trusted her and considered a good friend.

The former vice president was open about his experiences with grief on the campaign trail, frequently mentioning Beau and speaking intimately with bereaved voters. In January of 2020, Politico's Michael Kruse described empathy as Joe's "superpower," writing: "There is no person in American politics today whose life has been so shaped by loss and grief. The long arc of Biden’s career is all but bracketed by tragedy."

Since Beau's death, Joe has became even more passionate about cancer research, heading up the Cancer Moonshot program of the Obama administration. While running for president, Joe told supporters, "I promise you, if I'm elected president, you're going to see the single most important thing that changes America—we're gonna cure cancer."

Joe has also become a fierce advocate for mental health, making it a priority as vice president. “Imagine what it would mean if people felt as comfortable saying they were going for counseling as they were going for a flu shot?" he marveled in 2013.

In an interview with MSNBC earlier this year, Joe said that “hundreds of people... throw their arms over me” as they tell him about the hard losses of their parents, children, and spouses, and “all they want to know is that they can make it.”

He continued, “The way you make it is you find purpose and you realize they’re inside you. They’re part of you. It’s impossible to separate.”

• Chrissy Teigen shared videos of John Legend's soundcheck ahead of his performance at Joe Biden and Kamala Harris' inauguration celebrations Wednesday.
• Here's the snag: Said performance was supposed to be top secret.
• "LMAO apparently that was all supposed to be a secret and i got scolded so act surprised tomorrow I’m crying," Teigen tweeted.

Chrissy Teigen might just have had her security clearance downgraded a notch, after she accidentally leaked details of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris' inauguration celebrations on Twitter. John Legend is scheduled to perform during the prime-time special "Celebrating America," which will air on Wednesday evening, as the New York Times reports—but the finer details weren't supposed to be made public, as Teigen learned too late on Tuesday.

Teigen documented her family's arrival in Washington D.C. on social media, revealing that she and Legend struggled to find their way to soundcheck. "lmao we got lost on the way to soundcheck but I just got to meet these fucking actual heroes," she tweeted, alongside a photo of herself and Legend with some members of the National Guard.

Teigen went on to post two videos of, presumably Legend's soundcheck, which took place in front of the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument in the distance. The videos reveal a military band is likely to take part in his performance Wednesday. "What in the...wow. This is amazing. Really! This is crazy, beautiful," she says in one clip. "John! I'm crying," she captioned a second video.

Here's the snag: Teigen wasn't actually supposed to share anything at all from behind the scenes of the inauguration celebration, and wound up getting reprimanded for her indiscretion. "LMAO apparently that was all supposed to be a secret and i got scolded so act surprised tomorrow I’m crying," she tweeted, shortly after sharing the videos. At the time of writing, almost 61,000 people have liked the tweet, while Teigen has over 13 million followers on Twitter, so...let's just hope we're all exceptionally good at acting!

The last few months have shaken American democracy, but Joe Biden will be inaugurated as the next president of the United States at noon today, and Dr. Jill Biden will officially become the First Lady. Wearing an ocean blue tweed blazer and matching silk mask, Biden marked a new era in American politics in an outfit by New York-based designer Alexandra O'Neill, the founder and creative director of Markarian. The incoming First Lady took a page from Michelle Obama in championing up-and-coming American designers.

In a press release, Markarian said: "The color blue was chosen for the pieces to signify trust, confidence, and stability."

Dr. Jill Biden is no stranger to the power of a dress. At then President-elect Joe Biden’s victory address, the First Lady wore a short-sleeved Oscar de la Renta dress with embroidered flowers in a nod to Michelle Obama, Laura Bush, Hillary Clinton, and Jackie Kennedy, who frequently wore the designer. By subtly invoking these women, Biden threaded herself into the fabric of First Ladies past. Her inaugural ensemble had no less significance.

On the inaugural stage, singer Jennifer Lopez sang "This Land Is Your Land." She then broke into Spanish, saying, "Una nacíon bajo Dios con libertad y justicia para todos." One nation under God, with liberty and justice for all. The daughter of Puerto Rican parents, Lopez's presence during the inauguration of President Biden and Vice President Harris is a game-changer.

Throughout her career, Lopez has forged a path for Latinx people across the world. In her acting and singing career, Lopez created space for others to follow in her footsteps, and given young Latina girls a role model who they could look up to and strive to resemble. Under the previous administration, when Latinx and Hispanic people were alternatively called "bad hombres," vilified, and locked in cages at the border, a Latinx woman calling for justice for all in Spanish speaks volumes.

The new tone, coupled with President Biden's pledge to reunite children separated at the border with their parents, is a welcome change.

Coming only minutes after Vice President Kamala Harris became the first woman and person of color to hold the position, Lopez's presence on the stage has already shown that diversity will be an important cornerstone of the Biden administration.

We've heard some incredible, inspiring Inauguration speeches today (including that of our 46th President Joe Biden) but the words of the country's first National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman somehow hit all of us differently. At just 22 years old, Gorman became the youngest poet to ever perform at a presidential inauguration. Her powerful poem on the healing power of unity not only commanded national attention, but captured the hearts of listeners across the political divide. Her words, wise and strong, brave and true, managed to truly express the ethos of this moment.

Requested to perform by First Lady Jill Biden, Gorman started to write the poem, entitled "The Hill We Climb," following the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6. In performing today, she joins the likes of other poets who have addressed the nation at Inauguration ceremonies, including Maya Angelou, Robert frost, Elizabeth Alexander and Richard Blanco (the last two of whom she spoke with before performing for advice).

Her powerful poem has clearly resonated with the world. Just ask Twitter:

So... Amanda Gorman for president 2028? (PSA: You can buy her book here.)

On Wednesday, January 20, Kamala Harris will not only become the first female vice president, but she'll also become the first Black woman and first Asian-American woman to hold the position. Harris has made her position on the gun control debate clear: During her presidential campaign last year, Harris declared that she would sign an executive order "mandating background checks for customers of any firearms dealer who sells more than five guns a year," per the New York Times, if Congress didn't take action within the first 100 days. She also stated that she would close the boyfriend loophole and ban assault weapons, and fugitives would not be allowed to purchase any handgun or weapon.

Since making those statements, she has remained consistent on her stance, and emphasized that it's possible for citizens to keep their Second Amendment rights while also passing effective gun control legislation that could save millions of lives. (For the record, she's a gun owner.) In August 2019, four months after the executive order statement, Harris once again laid out her gun control proposal as president:

"As president, I will take executive action to:

→Revoke the licenses of gun manufacturers & dealers that break the law

→Require anyone who sells more than 5 guns/yr to run a background check on all gun sales

→Ban the importation of AR-15-style assault weapons"

Of course, there's a chance these proposals could shift now that Biden is the president-elect, but Biden has also maintained a strong stance on gun control. He has a close relationship with Fred Guttenberg, father of Jaime Guttenberg—one of the 17 victims of the Parkland shooting on February 14, 2018—and has a history of battling the National Rifle Association (NRA). In 1993, Biden helped pass the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which enacted the federal background check system. The following year, Biden and Senator Dianne Feinstein also passed a 10-year ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

Together, the NRA knows that Biden and Harris have a powerful stance on gun control. The gun rights advocacy group, which is currently being sued by New York Attorney General Letitia James, attacked Harris and Biden on Twitter immediately following Biden's VP announcement and claimed that "Harris's presidential campaign died soon after announcing extreme gun control agendas."

The NRA's tweet is false, but quite telling of where Harris stands on gun control. Two hours after Harris was officially selected as Biden's running mate, Everytown for Gun Safety sent out an email to subscribers stating that "we have the chance to elect the strongest president and vice president for gun safety in American history."

You can read the Biden administration's full plan for gun control measures here. It includes: banning the manufacture and sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines; requiring background checks for all gun sales; ending the online sale of firearms and ammunitions; and closing various loopholes that allow people to buy guns.

President-elect Joe Biden is close with his entire family, which includes his youngest daughter Ashley Biden. You've probably heard less about Ashley than Joe's other children; she lives a quieter, less public life than her older brothers, Hunter and Beau (the latter, who served as Delaware's attorney general, sadly died in 2015). Married in 2012 to Dr. Howard Krein, the social worker/career development and education liaison has evolved into a business owner and passionate advocate for social justice. So what else do we know about the soon-to-be First Daughter, who is by far the most low-key of the president-elect's children?

Ashley is very close with Joe.

Ashley is Joe's second daughter. Her older sister Naomi and Joe's first wife Neilia were tragically killed in a car accident in 1972 (Naomi, nickname "Amy," was only 15 months old). Joe married Jill Biden in 1977, and Ashley was born in 1981.

Ashley accompanied her father on the campaign trail, and the experience inspired her to a career as an activist. "My dad always taught me that silence is complicity, and that I must stand up for anyone who was being treated unfairly. That has stayed with me through adulthood, and is the guiding principle in my professional life," she has explained.

She went to a private high school in Bloomington, Delaware, and later majored in cultural anthropology at Tulane University. Unsure what her next steps would be, Ashley took shifts at a local pizza shop in her hometown until deciding to pursue her passion for activism. In 2010, she earned her master's degree in social work through from the University of Pennsylvania's School of Social Policy and Practice.

She was named executive director of the Delaware Center for Justice in 2014, which focuses on criminal justice reform. Her work was impacted by tragedy in 2015: Her older brother Beau passed away of brain cancer. "It was very important to Ashley,” her mom explained at the time, “to carry on Beau’s legacy—the reforms in criminal justice, his work with children. Hunter, too, set an example with the work he was doing. She always had a reason to be engaged with them and she found a way to follow her own lead."

She has spoken about knowing that Beau will be part of his dad's inauguration: "He was 46 when he passed. Dad will be the 46th president," she told NBC.

Though she often stays out of the limelight, Ashley and her brother Hunter introduced Joe at the (virtual) Democratic National Convention. "He'll be rock steady...he'll treat everyone with respect no matter who you are," she explained. "He'll love you with all of his heart." Ashley was one of several family members who joined together to support Joe, including several of his grandchildren.

She was born for public service.

Ashley explained to Glamour in 2017 why she's devoted her life to causes that are important to her. “The passion started at a very young age...My dad is a lifelong public servant; my mom was a public-school teacher—it’s in my DNA.”

She eventually focused on social justice in education, but according to her, she had a real passion for causes since she was very young:

“When I was a kid, I always really loved animals, and I found out that Bonne Bell lip gloss was testing on animals, so I organized my school to start writing letters to [the company],” she says. “Then I became obsessed with the plight of dolphins getting stuck in tuna nets. My dad connected me with Congressman Barbara Boxer, who I nicknamed the ‘dolphin lady,’ and she got me onto the floor to help lobby Republican congressman for The Dolphin Protection Consumer Information Act.”

She values keeping a low profile.

Because she grew up in the public eye, Ashley likes to keep certain aspects of her life private when she can. Her Instagram account is closed to the public and most of her attendance at events are low-profile.

At a keynote speech at the Women Rule 2014 Summit in Washington, D.C., Ashley got candid about her feelings on speaking at such large events. "It's an honor to be here amongst a room full of women who rule," she said during one of her rare public events. There is actually a really good energy, and I actually feel comfortable, and in these type of things, I normally don't."

She owns her own company, Livelihood.

Ashley founded the organization Livelihood after Beau died. It designs and sells American-made clothing, with a goal of donating proceeds to sales to community organizations in D.C. and Delaware. The intention of the organization is "supporting criminal justice reform, improving childhood education and ameliorating economic disparities."

In an interview with Delaware Today, Ashley spoke on why she got into the business. She said, “It doesn’t matter if it’s overcoming incarceration and poor choices—I’ve made plenty, too—or grappling with a sibling’s death, you can move forward and be better,” she says. “Getting people out of the justice system, or simply getting them the services they need, is about hope and possibilities. I am in my job because our system is malfunctioning. Mass incarceration isn’t the answer.”

Here, she speaks about Livelihood at the University of Delaware:

She's married to Philadelphia surgeon Howard Krein.

On June 2, 2012, Ashley married Krein at the church in Delaware where she was baptized; the reception was held at the Biden home. "This is the right guy," Biden said at the time. "And he’s getting a helluva woman." Ashley met Krein through her late brother Beau in 2010, and the couple planned to live less than an hour away from Beau in Philadelphia.

According to his LinkedIn, Krein holds a few positions: He's Chief Medical Officer at StartUp Health, which helps "entrepreneurs to build sustainable health and wellness companies," senior director of health policy and innovation at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, and associate professor of otolaryngology: head and neck surgery at Jefferson as well. He also has an unofficial role on the Covid-19 pandemic response team. He's on Instagram, apparently, but doesn't post very much.

She has her own fans.

Joe's notoriously private daughter gained some new fans at the celebration rally of her father winning the election. From the minute she got on the stage with other family members to rejoice in the results, she could not stop dancing—and supporters everywhere could tell how important this win for her father was to her.

Fans tweeted clips of her dancing, writing, "Ashley Biden dancing her way across the stage is a vibe" to " At my next admin meeting, I am wearing a leopard print face mask and bringing Ashley Biden-level energy."

Ashley did her first network interview on the eve of her dad's inauguration, saying of the Trumps' plan on inauguration day: "I don't think they're doing the traditional protocol, which is unfortunate, but I think we're all OK with it." She said she plans to use her platform to "to advocate for social justice, for mental health, to be involved in community development and revitalization."

After a violent pro-Donald Trump mob attempted to stage a coup as Congress convened to certify the election of Joe Biden as the next president on Jan. 6, and in the days since, many Americans have called for the removal of Trump from office. With a little over a week left of his term, there are several ways this could happen: via resignation, the 25th Amendment, or an impeachment trial.

It's unlikely that Trump would follow in Richard Nixon's footsteps in doing the first unless, as some have noted, he's able to force Mike Pence, as interim president, to pardon him immediately after (which, incidentally, is also how Nixon avoided punishment for his role in the Watergate scandal, courtesy of Gerald Ford). The 25th Amendment, which allows for the removal of the president by the vice president and a majority of the cabinet, is also unlikely to be enacted, despite a formal Congressional request for Pence to do so and despite what is reportedly a growing rift between Pence and Trump. Therefore, impeachment—Trump's second, ICYMI—seems to be the nation's best hope to hold the president accountable for his actions in inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection and attempting to overthrow a free and fair election.

Before we get into what impeachment would look like with only a few days left in the Trump administration, a quick refresher on the presidential impeachment process: First, the House of Representatives brings one or more articles of impeachment to a vote. If a simple majority supports the articles, the president is impeached (as Trump was in December 2019). The articles are then sent to the Senate, which stages a trial presided over by the chief justice of the Supreme Court; in the ensuing vote after the trial, a two-thirds supermajority of senators is required to approve conviction, which automatically removes the president from office (after his first impeachment trial, Trump was acquitted by the Senate in February 2020). Once convicted, the Senate would just need a simple majority on another vote to bar the president from ever holding any public office again.

Here, then, is what happens if the impeachment trial is held after Trump has already been removed from office—and if that's even constitutionally plausible.

What's the timeline for Trump's potential second impeachment?

House members began drafting articles of impeachment on the day of the insurrection—and in the case of Rep. Ilhan Omar, during the insurrection—and officially unveiled a single article on Jan. 11. The resolution charges Trump with "inciting violence against the government of the United States." It points to the president's repeated attempts to sow mistrust in the election process, his remarks at a rally near the Capitol on the day of the riots, and the phone call in which he threatened Georgia's secretary of state if he didn't "find" enough votes to overturn the state's election results.

The House also introduced a resolution calling on Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment. That resolution will come to a vote on Tuesday, Jan. 12, and give Pence 24 hours to take action to remove Trump from office; if he doesn't do so, the House is expected to convene the next day to vote on the article of impeachment, which is all but guaranteed to pass easily due to the House's Democratic majority and overwhelming support for Trump's removal.

From there, it's up to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi when to send the article of impeachment to the Senate for a trial. Congress members have suggested that Pelosi may wait to do so, so that the trial will not interfere with Joe Biden's plans to begin implementing his agenda from the moment he's sworn into office on Jan. 20. Waiting to send the article to trial until after Biden's first 100 days has another added benefit: By then, the Democrats will hold a razor-thin majority in the Senate, potentially giving them an easier route to conviction.

That said, this would be the first time in U.S. history that a presidential impeachment trial is held after the president has already left office. The only other presidential impeachments—of Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton, and Trump, his first time around—were all carried out while each president was still in office, and concluded with acquittal in the Senate.

Is there any other precedent for a post-inauguration impeachment?

Though not totally uncommon in world history, this has only happened once before in the U.S.: As NBC News notes, back in 1876, then-Secretary of War William Belknap issued his resignation to President Ulysses S. Grant mere minutes before the House was scheduled to vote on his impeachment over allegations of corruption. Despite his last-minute resignation, the House moved forward with the vote, then passed the successful resolution to the Senate, which held the impeachment trial and ended up acquitting Belknap.

What does the Constitution say?

While impeachment is mentioned several times in the Constitution, there are no stipulations about the timing of the process. The document only denotes that the president, vice president, and all "civil officers" of the U.S. are subject to impeachment for treason, bribery, and other "high crimes and misdemeanors"; that the House of Representatives will have sole power of impeachment; that the Senate will have sole power to try all impeachments; and that impeachment can only result in removal from office and prohibition from holding future office.

It makes sense that the Framers would have been intentionally vague about timing, in order to prevent any public officials who commit treason or other impeachable crimes in their final days in office from getting off scot-free.

What are the experts saying?

Between the Constitution's lack of specifications about the timing of impeachment proceedings and Belknap's belated impeachment, many legal scholars have determined that Trump could, indeed, be tried in the Senate well after he has left office.

"Once an impeachment begins in the House, it may continue to a Senate trial. I don't see any constitutional problem with the Senate acting fast or slowly," Michael Gerhardt, a law professor at the University North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told NBC News.

"The constitutional case for late impeachment has more strengths and fewer flaws than the case against it," according to a widely cited 2001 law review article by Michigan State University law professor Brian C. Kalt. Kalt based his argument on individual states' constitutions, the writings of the Framers, previous examples of "late impeachment" in England, and the fact that the Constitution stipulates that impeachment can result not only in removal from office, but also in a ban on holding public office in the future—implying that impeachment isn't only an immediate punishment for those currently in office.

And finally, President John Quincy Adams also once weighed in on the topic, sharing his belief that any public official could be impeached for any crimes they commit while in office, no matter how many years later they're uncovered. "I hold myself, so long as I have the breath of life in my body, amenable to impeachment by this House for everything I did during the time I held any public office," he said in 1846.

In a normal year, a presidential inauguration is a massive event that takes over pretty much all of Washington, D.C., flooding the streets with supporters (and, often, some protestors) and serving as an exhilarating celebration of either the arrival of a new administration or the continuation of an incumbent one. 2021, of course, is not a normal year. With the COVID-19 pandemic still in full swing, President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris have instituted a series of strict safety protocols to protect potential attendees at their January 20 ceremony, which is themed "Our Determined Democracy: Forging a More Perfect Union."

As a result, the event will look completely different from past years', with most of it conducted virtually and attendance severely limited for all in-person portions of the day, with the Presidential Inaugural Committee taking cues from the mostly virtual Democratic National Convention last summer. Any drawbacks will, of course, be heavily outweighed by the benefits: namely, the health and safety of the country, as well as the lack of new material for a certain someone to use to (falsely) boast about the (small) crowd size at his own (sparsely attended) inauguration. The day's events will conclude with a virtual inauguration parade that will highlight Americans across the country—here's everything you need to know about the virtual celebration.

Details have yet to be finalized, but the virtual parade will likely kick off sometime in the early afternoon on January 20, around 2 or 3 p.m. ET, then continue for at least a few hours. The official swearing-in ceremony for both the incoming president and vice president typically begins around 11 a.m., followed by the new POTUS' inaugural address. The new leaders then perform a ceremonial inspection of the military, before being formally escorted from the Capitol to the White House, at which point the inaugural parade begins.

In contrast to inviting huge crowds to line Pennsylvania Avenue to take in the parade, the virtual event will "showcase President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris' steadfast commitment to a diverse, inclusive, and unified nation," while also "highlighting more of our nation's people than ever before," Tony Allen, CEO of the Presidential Inaugural Committee, said in a Jan. 5 statement.

Though specific performers have yet to be announced, inaugural parades regularly include thousands of participants representing marching bands, dance troupes, military groups, and other organizations from across the U.S. The Biden-Harris PIC has confirmed that this tradition will continue, with musical acts, poets, dancers, and more performing virtually at the parade. And though celebrities usually pop up either to sing the National Anthem at the swearing-in or to serenade the First and Second Families at the dozens of inaugural balls across D.C., with those events either canceled or severely slimmed-down this year, its likely that we might see some of Biden and Harris' famous supporters Zoom into the parade to speak or perform instead.

Overall, according to the committee, "The parade will celebrate America's heroes, highlight Americans from all walks of life in different states and regions, and reflect on the diversity, heritage, and resilience of the country as we begin a new American era."

First and foremost, you'll be able to watch all of the events of the Biden-Harris inauguration live on every news channel (and plenty of non-news channels) all day on Jan. 20, and the inaugural committee will also be livestreaming the event online. If you want to get even more involved, the committee has released a collection of inauguration-themed social media graphics and Zoom backgrounds for all of your virtual inauguration party needs.

Additionally, the committee has issued a call for Americans to submit videos in which they discuss either the importance of community service or their visions for America. These videos will be posted on the committee's site and, presumably, may also be played throughout the virtual parade proceedings.

Keep an eye on this page in the final days leading up to Biden and Harris' inauguration—we'll be updating it with any further details about the events.

Within 48 hours of being declared the next president of the United States, Joe Biden jumped into action. By the morning of Nov. 9, he had launched a new website outlining four central priorities for the beginning of his term, assembled a COVID-19 task force, and, following a meeting with his 13-member, doctor-led team, delivered a briefing outlining his pandemic response plan.

Next up on Biden's agenda for the post-election, pre-inauguration interregnum period is the appointment of the remaining members of his Cabinet. The president is in charge of hiring (and, if you're Donald Trump, repeatedly firing) the Cabinet, which includes the leaders of 15 federal departments, including Education, Justice, State, and Defense, as well as the vice president and a handful of other high-ranking administration officials. Typically, the president-elect begins assembling the Cabinet shortly after being elected so that the Senate can begin holding hearings in early January and confirm the appointments as soon as the presidential term begins.

Biden still has yet to name several members of his Cabinet—but here's everything we know so far about when he'll do so, and who he'll be appointing.

What has Joe Biden said about filling out his Cabinet?

In stark contrast to Trump's overwhelmingly white and male Cabinet, Biden has repeatedly expressed his desire to assemble an advisory group that more accurately reflects the demographics of the country they're serving, a mission that began with the selection of the nation's first Black, Asian-American, female vice president-elect as his running mate.

"I said from the outset I wanted a campaign that represented America, and I think we did that. Now that's what I want the administration to look like," Biden said in his Nov. 7 victory speech after being named the 46th POTUS. And earlier this year, he expanded even more on what that might look like: "Men, women, gay, straight, center, across the board, Black, white, Asian—it really matters that it looks like the country, because everyone brings a slightly different perspective," he said in April.

A diverse administration, then, is expected to be a mix of many women (if not a majority), BIPOC leaders, progressive and moderate Democrats, and potentially even some moderate Republicans, which would support Biden's repeated commitment to work across the aisle. Such a Cabinet could further make history if it includes people of color and/or women at the top of the Treasury and Defense departments, which Politico notes are the two remaining departments that have only ever been led by white men.

Biden will have to be especially strategic in his Cabinet choices, since he wouldn't want to pluck too many Democrats from Congress and risk losing his party's majority in the House of Representatives. Additionally, pending the results of Georgia's two Senate runoffs, the confirmation of those choices could be in the hands of a majority-Republican Senate. If so, Biden may have trouble getting progressive Democrats like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders into his Cabinet, as evidenced by an interview Lindsey Graham gave on Nov. 6 in which he admitted that Biden "deserves a Cabinet," but warned that "there may be some people that I just can't vote for because I think they're unqualified or too extreme."

Who will be appointed to Joe Biden's Cabinet?

After spending his first week as president-elect focusing on healthcare, Biden has since begun slowly building out the administration that will help him carry out his plans for healthcare and other reforms. He announced several key members of his foreign policy and national security teams, including multiple Cabinet-level posts, on Nov. 23, followed by the leaders of his economic team on Nov. 30, his healthcare team on Dec. 7, and his domestic policy team on Dec. 10. Several more Cabinet positions, however, still have yet to be decided. Appointment decisions are reportedly made based on discussions between Biden, his transition team and close advisers, and his lawyers.

Here's who Biden has chosen or is deciding among for most of the remaining Cabinet-level positions (options for the administrator of the Small Business Administration have yet to be reported), according to official announcements and to predictions compiled by Politico, The New York Times, and USA Today based on information from Biden's team, sources close to the candidates, lobbyists, and general knowledge of the nation's leaders in each area of expertise.

Biden named Klain his chief of staff on Nov. 11. Klain previously served as then-Vice President Biden's chief of staff from 2009 to 2011, and was an adviser on his 1988 and 2008 presidential campaigns. As chief of staff, Klain will oversee and manage the daily activities and operations of the rest of the administration, working as something of a gatekeeper between the president and the Cabinet, Congress, and other political groups.

Blinken, nominated on Nov. 23, will take on the role of Biden's go-to adviser on all matters of foreign policy, including immigration laws. He was the Obama-Biden Administration's Deputy Secretary of State from 2015 to 2017, and also served as Principal Deputy National Security Advisor to President Obama and National Security Advisor to Vice President Biden during Obama's presidency.

If confirmed by the Senate to lead the Department of Homeland Security, Mayorkas, who was born in Cuba, would be the first immigrant and the first Latino to hold the position. Mayorkas, who was also nominated on Nov. 23, was the deputy secretary of the department from 2013 to 2016, after a stint as the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services during Obama's first term.

Yellen served as the chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President Bill Clinton and was the chair of the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2018; if confirmed as Treasury Secretary following her Nov. 30 nomination, she'll be the first person in U.S. history to hold all three of those senior economic positions. Additionally, upon her Senate confirmation, she'll become the first woman named to head the Treasury Department since Alexander Hamilton originated the role in 1789.

A retired four-star general, Austin's military service spans more than four decades. He was the 12th commander of the U.S. Central Command and worked closely with then-VP Biden to bring about 150,000 troops home from Iraq. Confirmation of his Dec. 8 nomination would make him the first Black leader of the Department of Defense; throughout his career, he racked up countless other impressive, history-making milestones as the first Black general officer to command a U.S. Army division and lead a corps in combat, command an entire theater of war, serve as vice chief of staff of the army, and serve as commander of U.S. Central Command.

Buttigieg will soon be nominated to lead the U.S. Department of Transportation, multiple sources reported Dec. 15. If confirmed, he will be the nation's first openly gay Cabinet member. The former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who was also said to be in the running for Secretary of Commerce and Ambassador to the United Nations, will oversee all of America's infrastructure, including highways, airspace, and railroads. Amid the reports of his presumed nomination, however, some Black community leaders from South Bend warned that Buttigieg has a track record of failing to work with communities of color, especially in terms of infrastructure, Politico reports.

The current attorney general of California would be the first Latino to lead the nation's health department if his Dec. 7 nomination is confirmed. Becerra played a key role in the passage of the Affordable Care Act during his time as a U.S. Congressman representing the Golden State, and recently led its defense in a November Supreme Court case.

If confirmed, Vilsack will pick right back up where he left off after eight years as head of the Department of Agriculture under Obama. During that time, he implemented improvements to federal investment in rural communities, public school lunch offerings, and food safety standards, and also led the first-ever White House Rural Council. The Dec. 10 nominee previously served two terms as governor of Iowa.

Fudge, previously the mayor of Warrensville Heights, Ohio, has represented Ohio in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2008, during which time she has led the Congressional Black Caucus and been a part of multiple other congressional caucuses, and dedicated much of her efforts to reducing poverty and inequality. If her Dec. 10 nomination is confirmed, she'll be the first woman to lead HUD in almost half a century, and only the second Black woman to do so.

McDonough has spent much of his career in the national security space. He served as principal deputy national security advisor to President Obama and was chief of staff for the National Security Council; the Dec. 10 nominee also served as chief of staff for almost all of Obama's second term, from 2013 to 2017.

Haines was the first woman to serve as Deputy Director of the CIA, a position she held from 2013 to 2015; if her Nov. 23 nomination is confirmed, she'll also be the first woman to be named Director of National Intelligence. She worked closely with Biden during his years in the Senate and in the Obama administration, and was chosen in June to lead his transition team's National Security and Foreign Policy Team.

Another of Biden's history-making Nov. 30 nominees to his economic team, Tanden could be the first woman of color and first South Asian-American to lead the OMB, which produces the presidential budget and ensures all government agencies' activities align with the president's policies. Tanden has worked on multiple Democratic presidential campaigns since 1988, helped draft the Affordable Care Act, and is currently the president and CEO of the Center for American Progress liberal think tank. However, in light of those roles and other liberal-leaning entries on Tanden's resume, several pundits (and Republican senators) have predicted that Tanden may not be able to gain the votes she needs to be confirmed by the Senate to her assigned Cabinet post.

Tai's confirmation, following her Dec. 10 nomination, will make her the first Asian American and first woman of color to lead the development and coordination of U.S. trade policy. Tai has several years of experience in the office of the U.S. Trade Representative, as associate general counsel and then as chief counsel for China trade enforcement. She currently serves as chief trade counsel to the Congressional Committee on Ways and Means.

Thomas-Greenfield spent 35 years in the U.S. Foreign Service, serving on four continents and working as the Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of African Affairs during Obama's second term. Though the U.S. Ambassador to the UN is not currently a Cabinet-level position, it was raised to Cabinet rank under the Clinton and Obama Administrations, and held onto that distinction for the first half of Trump's presidency, so Thomas-Greenfield's Nov. 23 nomination could very well make her a member of Biden's Cabinet if he chooses to re-promote the position.

Potential candidates: Rohit Chopra; Susan Helper; Meg Whitman; Terry McAuliffe; Mellody Hobson.

Potential candidates: Randi Weingarten; Lily Eskelsen Garcia; Linda Darling-Hammond.

Potential candidates: Washington Gov. Jay Inslee; Rep. Andy Levin, D-Mich.; Ernest Moniz; Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall; Arun Majumdar.

Potential candidates: David Hayes; New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich; New Mexico Sen. Tom Udall; Mark Begich; Mark Udall; Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva; New Mexico Rep. Deb Haaland.

Potential candidates: Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.; William Spriggs; Sharon Block; Julie Su; Rep. Andy Levin, D-Mich.; Sara Nelson; Tom Perez.

Potential candidates: Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.; Sally Yates; Stacey Abrams; Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J.; Preet Bharara; Sen. Doug Jones, D-Ala.; Xavier Becerra; Tom Perez.

Potential candidates: Mary Nichols; Washington Gov. Jay Inslee; Heather McTeer Toney.

Potential candidates: Thomas E. Donilon; Michael Morell.