Jill Biden: I didn't expect 'healing role' as first lady

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Her husband campaigned to help unite the country, but Jill Biden says “healing” a nation wounded by a deadly pandemic, natural and other disasters and deep political polarization is among her chief roles as first lady, too.Wrapping up a year in which she saw herself as a key member of President Joe Biden’s team, the first lady told The Associated Press that she found herself taking on a role that “I didn’t kind of expect, which was like a healing role, because we’ve faced so much as a nation.” Jill Biden spoke sitting in the sunshine near a swimming pool at a Las Vegas hotel a day after she and the president comforted families in Louisville, Colorado, where a huge swath of homes burned to the ground in a late December wildfire. “I would want to know that my president and first lady cared about me,” Biden said. Hayes also invited representatives from states that were on opposite sides of the Civil War to social events.“She worked hard to unify the country in a variety of interesting ways,” Jellison said.Besides her role as healer, Jill Biden also fulfilled the traditional first lady function of representing the United States abroad.She flew off on one solo foreign trip, to Tokyo to root for U.S. athletes at the delayed 2020 Olympic Games.