First Lady Jill Biden made a stop in Mount Kisco Sunday afternoon to attend a fundraising event for incumbent Democratic Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney. Maloney is being challenged in his bid for reelection to represent New York’s 17th Congressional District by Republican State Assemblyman Mike Lawler.
The event was held at the home of Hal and Nina Fetner and was attended by about 150 people. Hal Fetner is CEO of Fetner Properties, a real estate firm that has a number of multifamily residential properties in New York City. The Fetner family is noted for its contributions to Syracuse University.
Jill Biden spoke on the patio of the Fetner’s house. She urged support for Maloney and addressed him directly.
“Sean, you”™ve been such an incredible leader for the Hudson Valley and our party,” the First Lady said. “We”™re all here, every single one of us, because we are going to fight to send you back.”
Maloney has served five terms in the House of Representatives.
“He has been out front, leading Democrats in Congress against an extremist Republican agenda,” Mrs. Biden said. “He has delivered results again and again.”
Biden said that Maloney has backed legislation that provided billions of dollars in aid for small businesses, public schools, mass transportation, as well supporting legislation to control prescription drug costs.
Biden told the gathering that she has been to more than 40 states since becoming First Lady and said she has found similarities across the country in what people want.
“They really do want the same things that they”™ve always wanted, and that”™s a chance to work hard, and build a good life for their families,” she said.
The First Lady referenced the Supreme Court’s decision in the Dobbs case overturning Roe v. Wade. Biden recalled that when she was a teenager before Roe v. Wade became the law of the land a 17-year-old friend became pregnant. She said that the friend had to undergo a psychiatric evaluation to be declared mentally unfit before a doctor would perform an abortion. Biden recalled visiting the friend in the hospital and later asked her mother if her friend could stay with them after being discharged as a patient because she couldn”™t go home. Biden’s mother agreed to allow the friend to stay with them.
“My Mom and I never spoke about it again,” the First Lady said. “Secrecy, silence, danger, and even death. That”™s what defines that time for so many women. So I was shocked when the Dobbs decision came out. It was devastating.”
She reminded Maloney”™s supporters than every vote counts and asked them to do whatever they could over the next nine days to help Maloney win a sixth term.
“This is an enormous race, but it comes down to those small moments,” Biden said. “One phone call to a neighbor who forgot to vote, one ride offered to the polling place. Again and again, each action adds up. And suddenly we see what can be done. One vote can swing a precinct, one precinct can decide a district, one district can win a state.”
After the Mount Kisco appearance, Mrs. Biden traveled to Plainview on Long Island where she appeared at an event supporting Robert Zimmerman, the Democratic candidate in New York”™s 3rd Congressional District. She then went to Manhattan for a Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee event.
(Material provided by a pool reporter and distributed by the White House contributed to the preparation of this report.)
