First Lady Jill Biden will be bringing 26 guests to the president's State of the Union address Tuesday night ranging from entertainer Bono, to the mother of Tyre Nichols, to Paul Pelosi.
According to a White House statement, the guests will include:
- Ruth Cohen, a Holocaust survivor and a volunteer at the Holocaust Memorial Museum.
- Doug Griffin, who lost his daughter Courtney, 20, to a fentanyl overdose in 2014. He had written to President Joe Biden to share his family's ordeal.
- Pelosi, the husband of Nancy Pelosi, who was severely injured when a man broke into their California home looking for the then-House speaker.
- Row Vaughn and Rodney Wells, the mother and stepfather of Tyre Nichols. The 29-year-old Nichols was severely beaten by police in Memphis, Tennessee and died three days later.
- Brandon Tsay, who disarmed the shooter responsible for the mass shooting at the Monterey Park Lunar celebrations in California.
- Bono, the lead singer of U2 and an activist in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
- Oksana Markarova, the ambassador of Ukraine.
The first lady's guest list also includes a New York couple whose daughter is a survivor of a rare form of cancer. Also expected to attend is a Fort Myers Beach, Florida, small business operator, who survived Hurricane Ian, and an iron worker from Cincinnati, Ohio.
According to the White House, those invited personify issues or the theme and messages President Biden will touch on during his speech.
The Daily Mail said Jill Biden's box of seats is normally panned to by TV cameras, and the president usually points to its guests while addressing policy that pertains to them.