- Former first lady Michelle Obama is doubling down on her decision to not run for president.
- She said it would be “unthinkable” to put her daughters, Malia and Sasha, back in the spotlight again.
- “They’ve already served their time,” Obama said on a podcast.
Stop asking Michelle Obama if she’ll ever run for president — she’s not interested.
During an appearance on Thursday’s episode of the “Not Gonna Lie with Kylie Kelce” podcast, the former first lady made it very clear that she has no intention of running for office.
And it’s mostly because of her two daughters, Malia and Sasha.
“The day-to-day kind of challenges that any parent has with teenagers, we had it on 100,” Obama told podcast host Kylie Kelce. “I was so glad when we got out of the White House. I wanted them to have the freedom of not having the eyes of the world on them.”
When they first moved into the White House, her daughters were 8 and 10 years old. They spent the bulk of their teenage years in the public eye.
“When we entered, I’m thinking, how do I make sure that they’re normal and ready when this is all over, right? They have to get on a bus, make their own plane reservations, and live in an apartment, and have decent friends, and be sane in the world,” Obama said.
She said she tried her best to ensure a sense of normality in her daughters’ lives, despite their unusual circumstances.
As much as she wanted to prepare her daughters for a world outside the White House, Obama was also worried that they would become tabloid fodder by letting them live like normal teens.
“You start realizing that in the teen years because I wanted to give my girls enough rope to live and be normal teenagers, but I also worry about them turning up on Page Six because they were doing what normal kids would do without that many eyes on them,” Obama said.
These experiences contributed to her decision not to run for president.
“So when people ask me would I ever run? The answer is no,” Obama said. “If you ask me that, then you have absolutely no idea the sacrifice that your kids make when your parents are in that role.”
Not only is she not interested in politics “in that way,” the thought of putting her daughters back into the spotlight when they are just now establishing themselves in their own lives and careers would be “unthinkable,” she said.
“Question asked and answered — never going to happen,” Obama said. “They’ve already served their time.”
This isn’t the first time that Obama has been open about her desire not to run for president; her comments about not wanting to seek office date back to 2012.
A representative for Obama did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent by Business Insider outside regular hours.
