SEATTLE — First lady Jill Biden is scheduled to visit Seattle on Friday to promote the Biden administration’s “cancer moonshot” initiative and headline a pair of high-priced political fundraisers.
Biden will land at King County International Airport on Thursday, and visit the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center on Friday to “highlight the importance of supporting cancer survivors through specialized care and research, including survivors of childhood cancers and breast cancer,” according to the White House.
That evening, she will headline two private political fundraisers to benefit the Biden Victory Fund, supporting President Joe Biden’s 2024 reelection campaign.
A fundraiser in Shoreline will cost at least $1,000 to attend, with additional suggested donation or fundraising tiers of up to $50,000, according to a copy of an invitation obtained by The Seattle Times. A second fundraiser in Mercer Island is listed at $2,500 per person on up to $25,000.
Further details of Biden’s itinerary were not immediately released.
Joe Biden’s “cancer moonshot” initiative, which he first touted when he served as vice president under President Barack Obama, aims to vastly reduce cancer fatalities — an effort he has framed as giving America a united and galvanizing national agenda similar to President John Kennedy’s famous moonshot speech of 1962.
The president last year set a goal of reducing U.S. cancer fatalities by 50 percent over the next 25 years while improving the quality of life of patients and caregivers.
Biden himself visited Fred Hutch in 2016, touring the lab of a researcher whose work including progress on immunotherapy, which uses a patient’s own immune system to combat the disease.
Cancer has taken a personal toll on the Bidens, as it has for many families, with the Joe Biden’s son, Beau Biden, dying from brain cancer in 2015 at age 46.
No events open to the general public have been announced as part of Jill Biden’s Seattle visit.
