The peaceful transfer of power can come with a side of small talk — and according to former first lady Dr. Jill Biden, the ride to President Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2025, served up plenty of it. In her new memoir, “View from the East Wing,” released June 2, 2026, Biden pulls back the curtain on the chilly, weather-obsessed conversation she shared with Melania Trump during the short drive from the White House to the Capitol.
Tradition calls for the outgoing and incoming presidents to ride together while their spouses travel in a separate vehicle. That left Biden, 75, and Melania Trump face-to-face inside a car neither seemed particularly eager to share — with one very game middleman doing his best to keep things moving.
The Shortest Straw on Inauguration Day
Inauguration committee member John Bessler, who is married to Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, drew the assignment of accompanying the two first ladies. Biden wrote that he “must have drawn the shortest of all possible straws,” and credited him for gamely trying to chip away at the silence.
Biden, who described Bessler as a quiet, reserved Midwesterner, said he surprised her by chatting almost immediately, peppering both women with questions. She suspected Klobuchar had told him “to put some pep in his step.” Bessler asked about Barron Trump’s experience at New York University, where he was matriculating. According to Biden’s account, Melania Trump explained that Barron attended class, was brought back to “a floor in Trump Tower,” and saw mostly friends from high school rather than new classmates.
“The presidents’ car was likely frosty too, but at least they’d spent considerable time in each other’s company,” Biden wrote. “This would be one of few interactions Melania and I had ever had.”
Weather, Dogs and a Polite Standoff
The temperature outside was below freezing — and inside the car, the conversation kept circling back to it. Biden wrote that Melania Trump “kept trying to switch the topic to the weather” whenever the talk drifted elsewhere. Biden said she tried to play along, mentioning that she felt bad for the military dogs they passed along the route because of the cold.
That prompted a small but telling exchange. Melania Trump replied that the Trumps had never had a dog. “I asked Barron several times, but he said no, he didn’t want a dog,” she said, according to Biden. When Biden asked how Melania Trump’s father was doing since the death of her mother, Amalija Knavs, Melania Trump said he was well and was with them, adding, “But you know, it’s only been a year.” Soon after, the car pulled up to the Capitol.
A History of Brief Encounters
The two first ladies have met only a handful of times over the years. After then-former Vice President Joe Biden won the 2020 election, then-President Donald Trump refused to concede and did not invite the Bidens for the customary postelection White House meeting. Melania Trump followed suit, declining to invite Jill Biden for the traditional tea in 2021. The pair did not share a motorcade that year either.
When Donald Trump won a second, non-consecutive term in 2024, the Bidens revived the tradition of welcoming the incoming president and first lady. Donald Trump accepted; Melania Trump declined, citing a prior commitment. The two women had previously met briefly at the funerals of Rosalynn Carter in 2023 and Jimmy Carter in 2024, and Biden had also called Melania Trump after Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. “She was polite and controlled as ever,” Biden wrote of that call.
Biden also wrote that she sent Melania Trump a birthday card every year, as she did for every other living first lady. In a more candid passage detailed by the memoir excerpts, Biden said she believed Melania Trump blamed President Joe Biden directly for the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago. “I had compassion for her, having been subject to the same kind of search,” Biden wrote, noting how distressing it was to have agents go through personal belongings.
One Last Tradition — and a Twist
Before leaving the White House, Biden followed the customary outgoing-first-lady ritual, leaving Melania Trump a handwritten note and a vase of flowers. She later learned a staff member had slipped a separate letter underneath hers, an act Biden described as “insinuating oneself into a private historic tradition between two women.” The move, she wrote, “still frosted me.”
Once inside the Capitol, Biden recalled a few lighter moments. She nudged Doug Emhoff, husband of former Vice President Kamala Harris, when Trump’s inaugural address turned “particularly bombastic,” and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton burst out laughing when Trump mentioned renaming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.”
After the ceremony, the Bidens boarded Marine One for the last time and landed at Joint Base Andrews, where hundreds of supporters gathered in the cold to see them off before they flew to Santa Ynez, California. The Office of First Lady Melania Trump declined to comment when reached for the original report.
