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Jill Biden thanks National Guardsmen with chocolate chip cookies, Internet slams 'shameless photo op'

Dr Jill Biden visited the National Guards in honor of her late son Beau, but the internet is still fixed over troops who had to sleep in the garage

After her first public outing as a First Lady, Dr Jill Biden took an unannounced detour to the US Capitol on Friday, January 22, to thank the National Guard members with baskets of chocolate chip cookies for "for keeping me and my family safe" during her husband President Joe Biden's inauguration.

"I just want to say thank you from President Biden and the whole, the entire Biden family," Dr Biden told the Guardsmen at the Capitol. "The White House baked you some chocolate chip cookies," she said, before joking that she couldn't say she had baked them herself.

President Biden was sworn into office on Wednesday, January 20, in a ceremony that came exactly two weeks after former President Donald Trump's 'supporters' broke into the Capitol in what turned out to be a futile attempt to keep Congress from calling the November presidential election results in favor of Biden. This led to more tight security with extensive measures taken for the inauguration, and the ceremony went on smoothly, without any interference.

During her visit to the National Guard, Dr Biden told them of her late son Beau Biden, who was a Delaware Army National Guard, with a year of service deployed in Iraq from 2008 and 2009. Beau died of brain cancer in 2015 at the age of 46. "So I'm a National Guard mom," she said, adding that the cookie baskets were a 'small thank you' to the National Guard for leaving their home states to come to the country's capital and be of service to the Bidens. President Biden too offered his gratitude to the chief of National Guard Bureau via a phone call Friday. "I truly appreciate all that you do," the first lady told the guards at the Capitol. "The National Guard will always hold a special place in the heart of all the Bidens."

On her agenda for the very first day as First Lady, Dr Biden highlighted services for cancer patients at Whitman-Walker Health. Based in Washington, the institution has a history of serving HIV/AIDS patients and also the LGBTQ community. Dr Biden, who is also a teacher, addressed nationwide spotty internet access and said, "we just have to work together and address some of these things. The first thing we have to do is address this pandemic and get everybody vaccinated and back to work and back to their schools and get things back to the new normal."

But these initiatives were clouded after Dr Biden paid the National Guard a visit with cookies. That, and the alleged reports claiming that the Bidens sent thousands of National Guardsmen to a freezing cold garage following a military photo-op stole the attention. After OAN's Jack Posobiec tweeted “SCOOP: Trump has given permission for the troops to stay at Trump Hotel DC if any of them need, per adviser”. Trump supporters took to Twitter to tout their former president while slamming the new members of the White House.

"Thank u Pres Trump! Now THAT'S how u treat our military! #BidenKickedOurTroopsToTheGarageFloor Shame on u @POTUS @JoeBiden Then offered cc cookies!?! R U kidding me?! Our troops deserve better, especially as they didn't need to b there in the 1st place!" tweeted one angry critic of the Biden administration. Another chimed in saying "JillBiden wantsto lookgood given a few cookies out to the national guard in the warm sunshine&say her heart iswiththe NationalGuard wherethe hell isthe Biden family‘s heart to thosenationalguardmen whohad tosleep onthecold garage floor inthebottomoftheCapital whereistheir cookies." 

Some joked about the situation, writing: "In return for making them sleep in a parking garage.. Jill Biden gave each national guard troop a single cookie." Some even took the opportunity to call out alleged media bias tweeting: "Jill Biden thinks 2 baskets of cookies for 21,000 troops is a sufficient response to making them needlessly sleep in Parking Garages and contracting covid” #TheHeadlineIfBidenWasARepublican".

Others felt sorry for the guards 'having to put up with this'. "Imagine being an infantry soldier and having to put up with this shit. Just nothing but standing around all day and then an officer screaming that Jill Biden is coming with cookies everyone get up here NOW," wrote a user.