After Franklin’s sudden polio diagnosis, Eleanor Roosevelt commits to enabling his political future despite pressure from her mother-in-law, Sara. As the Watergate scandal unfolds, Betty Ford unexpectedly becomes Second Lady upon Jerry’s nomination as Vice President and she clashes with his staff over her newly public role. Following the historic 2008 election, Michelle Obama wrestles with the expectations and dangers that Barack and their children face as the first Black family to live in the White House.

Young Eleanor reluctantly cuts short her progressive education in London to make her dreaded societal debut as a member of New York’s prestigious Roosevelt family, which includes her ambitious cousin, Franklin. In Michigan, Young Betty, trapped in an abusive marriage, finds herself pursued by hotshot lawyer Jerry. As she rises the ranks at a Chicago law firm, Young Michelle gets to know an idealistic and politically inclined summer intern named Barack.

Years before first entering the White House, Eleanor discovers Franklin’s marital indiscretions, which push her to socialize with more independent, politically active women in the salons of New York City. While Jerry rises through the ranks in Congress, a stubborn shoulder injury drives Betty to seek help from a doctor, who prescribes addictive pain medication. After toddler Sasha is rushed to the hospital with meningitis, Michelle vows to hold Chicago’s inadequate healthcare system to task by working to improve it from the inside.

Frustrated by the male dominated world of media and politics, Eleanor holds the White House’s first all-female press conference and grows closer to journalist Lorena “Hick” Hickock. Betty’s public announcement of her breast cancer diagnosis shifts opinion of the Ford Administration away from Jerry’s controversial pardon of Nixon and makes Betty a popular figure among American women. After Barack gets clobbered in the midterms, Michelle launches a new healthy school lunch program, which prompts a stalled Congress to enact new legislation.

Dissatisfied with Franklin’s complacency over growing international atrocities in Europe, Eleanor forces his hand to assist Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany. Having retired to Palm Springs, Jerry plans to keep active across the country, which leaves Betty to seek out new party companions at home. Despite Barack’s political hesitations, Michelle refuses to stay quiet on racially driven violence any longer while writing her commencement address for Tuskegee University.