Everything old is new again with the Biden administration these days, including a widely overlooked story from 2022 that reported Jill Biden had requested her own “Hail to the Chief”-inspired song that could be played when she entered events.
The reporting, courtesy of The Washington Examiner’s Becket Adams, found that the United States Marine Band had been instructed to compose an original tune for the first lady. They did as they were told and the song was apparently used a few times before its unceremonious retirement.
On Thursday’s show, Megyn was joined by Tulsi Gabbard, author of For Love of Country, to discuss the walk up music and what it illustrates about Biden’s “mindset of arrogance.”
The Song
While Adams’ story about the song request was published back in January 2022, it started making the rounds on social media again this week as the first lady and her influence on the president have been under renewed scrutiny.
According to sources who spoke to Adams, the Marine Corps band received orders in the fall of 2021 to “come up with an entrance theme” for the first lady that would “be performed and repeated at official White House functions, from her first appearance until she is ready to speak.”
The band complied and “rushed” to create an original composition titled “Fanfare for the First Lady,” which the source told Adams was “essentially Jill Biden’s personal ‘Hail to the Chief.’” Adams noted the song had been performed at least twice – including in October 2021 for a ‘Teacher of the Year’ event held at the White House (video below) – and the band even made a recording of the piece to be played in its absence.
While the Marine Corps declined to comment on Adams’ story, Biden’s press secretary, Michael LaRosa, shot down the report. “The first lady does not have a song anybody has written for her specifically. She has no ‘Hail to the Chief’ song. She has no song,” he told The Washington Examiner at the time. “She never asked anyone to create a song.”
He said “the White House asked nobody, not one person, to compose an exclusive entry song, or any song, for the first lady,” and instead blamed the band. “We didn’t ask for it,” LaRosa continued. “They came and presented us the option. We had no idea it would even be used again.”
By April 2022, Adams’ story had been updated to say the outlet had learned that the U.S. Marine Band retired “Fanfare for the First Lady” from its repertoire. One source attributed the decision to pull the plug on the song to “negative” news coverage.
‘Mindset of Arrogance’
Megyn and Gabbard were both inclined to believe The Washington Examiner’s reporting because it follows a pattern of behavior from Biden. The former congresswoman joked that she has “never walked into a room and thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I need music,'” but, even so, she believes the request was about power.
Megyn agreed and noted that Biden is taking cues from one of her predecessors. “She is another Hillary Clinton who thinks it is a co-presidency,” she said. “It is that mindset of arrogance and of being so self-absorbed and really thinking it’s about you.”
It is not unlike, in Megyn’s view, Biden’s desire to be addressed as “Dr. Jill Biden” due to her doctor of education (EdD) degree. “It’s about power and thinking that this world revolves around her and the husband that she is propping up rather than the people that they are supposed to serve,” she explained. “It’s the same thing as insisting on being called ‘doctor’ even though she… is not a medical doctor.”
Ultimately, Megyn said it all speaks to the same thing. “It’s this necessary build up of her ego,” she concluded, “that insists on that, that insists on a song and the trumpets, and that insists on her frail, non compos mentis husband staying in the presidency even if it means he will exit the public stage in utter humiliation.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Gabbard by tuning in to episode 834 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.