How Jill Biden changes the classroom reopening conversation

Brandywine High School in Wilmington, Del., gave her a vehicle to talk to parents everywhere who are worrying about how to protect their kids.

• "This quiet is heavy," she said with a flag and empty desks in the background. "You can hear the anxiety that echoes down empty hallways."

Jill Biden invoked themes of healing a family hit by tragedy, hoping they translate to Joe Biden healing the nation.

• "How do you make a broken family whole?" she said. "The same way you make a broken nation whole: With love and understanding, small acts of kindness, with bravery, with unwavering faith."

Jill Biden's humanizing appearance could help inoculate her husband from some GOP attacks.

• She talked about "rowdy Sunday dinners" and "silly arguments."
• And nights when she was "studying for grad school, grading papers under the pale yellow kitchen lamp, the dinner dishes waiting in the sink."

Managing editor David Nather contributed reporting.