ANIMALS BRING HUMANITY TO THE WH
First lady Jill Biden confirms the highly-anticipated White House cat is 'waiting in the wings'
Grace Panetta
Apr 30, 2021

Socks, the Clintons' cat, peers over the podium in the White House briefing room Saturday March 19, 1994. A White House groundskeeper was walking Socks when he stopped and lifted Socks to the podium. Marcy Nighswander/AP


The White House cat is finally coming, First Lady Jill Biden confirmed on NBC's "Today Show."

"She's waiting in the wings," the First Lady said of the yet-to-be-identified feline.

The cat will join the Bidens' two German shepherds, Champ and Major, in the White House.


The highly-anticipated Biden White House cat is almost here, first lady Jill Biden confirmed in an interview on NBC's "Today Show" that aired Friday morning.

The Bidens announced plans to adopt a cat before moving into the White House, but didn't bring home their feline friend in Biden's first 100 days in office.

"She's waiting in the wings," Jill Biden said.

When asked by NBC News' Craig Melvin if the cat was his idea, President Joe Biden joked: "No, but it's easy."

The yet-to-be-identified cat will join the Bidens' two German shepherds: Champ, who is 12, and Major, who the Bidens adopted from the Delaware Humane Society in 2018.

Jill Biden said that Major, the younger of the Bidens' two dogs who has struggled with adjusting to life in the White House and received specialized training after being involved in two minor biting incidents, has already been acclimated to cats ahead of time.

"That was part of his training, they took him into a shelter with cats and he did fine," she said.

Former President Donald Trump was the first president in years to not have any White House pets. The Obamas had two Portuguese water dogs, Bo and Sunny, but no cats.


The last cat to occupy the White House, a black feline named India (also sometimes called Willie), belonged to George W. Bush and Laura Bush, who also had several dogs during their eight years in Washington, DC.

Before India, the Clintons' tuxedo cat Socks was a mainstay of the White House throughout the 1990s, dazzling White House staff and visitors in his role as first pet.

But Socks notoriously clashed and feuded with the Clintons' Labrador, Buddy, and was eventually sent to live with the Clintons' former personal secretary Betty Currie, with whom he resided until his death.

"You know, I did better with the Arabs, the Palestinians and the Israelis than I've done with Socks and Buddy," former President Bill Clinton said in an interview with CNN shortly before leaving office.