The name Jacquelyn Asbie probably doesn’t resonate much for many. But for the politically attuned, it may ring familiar.
She was the New York Times security guard captured on video telling then-candidate Joe Biden how much she loved him while he rode the elevator up to an endorsement interview with the paper’s editorial board.
Biden didn’t win the endorsement. But that moment, which went viral, mattered more: affirming his status as the candidate of the worker, not the intellectual elite that resided in the Ivory towers of the nation’s foremost paper above.
It mattered for Asbie, too. She went on to nominate Biden at the Democratic National Convention. For a moment, she was not just a national surrogate but an emblem of a presidential campaign.
But tough times have since fallen on her. Asbie, 35, said she got in a major car accident that left her injured and her car totaled. She was fired from that Times job last year for allegedly forging expense receipts. She said she got into an argument in late September with her parents, who then cut her off and took out a protective order against her for refusing to leave their house. She has resorted to a GoFundMe campaign to pay her bills.
“Currently seeking Shelter, Food, transportation and clothes. Help to get back on my feet for good! Been a long year and a hard struggle,” she wrote on the campaign’s website. As of Tuesday afternoon, out of a $5,000 goal, she’s raised $1,856.
Asbie does see her story as an illustration of larger problems that have taken place across society in recent years. She is worse off economically than when Biden took office. Much of it, she acknowledged, is because of irregular employment. She’s now about to start a job that would pay significantly less: $16.95 an hour at a grocery warehouse compared to the $32 an hour she made at the Times. But some of it is the high cost of living.
“Inflation shouldn’t be the way it is. And I think that’s the number one key that’s bothering me right now,” she said. “Inflation is super crazy and super high. And you have people like me that can't even get housing because it’s overly crowded.”
Asbie views the administration’s performance as “kind of up and down,” but still finds herself defending Biden as a politician and person.
“I kind of looked at people as you know, if you’re upper class or you’re a manager, and I’m just a regular worker, or you’re a celebrity, and I’m just working a nine to five, that you think you’re better than me,” she said. “And I didn’t feel that from him.”
She supports Biden’s reelection but is preoccupied with matters far from politics. “I have my own issues right now,” she said. “I’m drained from fighting for myself, and nobody else has helped me. And that’s the truth.”
Asbie currently lives in her hometown of Rochester, N.Y., on her cousin’s couch but is planning to go to a shelter next week. Though Biden promised she could visit him in the White House in a campaign video, a trip has yet to be finalized.
“We have been in touch with Jacquelyn about hosting her and her family members here at the White House,” White House spokesperson Robyn Patterson told West Wing Playbook. “We continue to hope to host her here soon.”
Asked what she would tell Biden if she could speak to him again, Asbie said: “Take care of those that take care of you.”
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