Michelle Obama appears to have addressed rumors that she could be in the White House again, but not as a first lady.
Obama’s office has shared a statement with NBC News and made it clear that she has no interest in running for the presidency.
“As former First Lady Michelle Obama has expressed several times over the years, she will not be running for president,” Crystal Carson, director of communications for the former first lady’s office, said. “Mrs. Obama supports President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ re-election campaign.”
That said, her office added that she will be campaigning for President Joe Biden, albeit on a smaller scale than in 2020, according to NBC.
The outlet said that Biden’s campaign will attempt to capitalize on the former first lady’s popularity with the Democrat voter base. Kevin Munoz, a spokesman for the Biden campaign, claimed that the Obamas were “enormously helpful” in helping Biden win the presidency during his 2020 campaign.
“President and Michelle Obama were enormously helpful in the fight to beat Donald Trump and elect President Biden and Vice President Harris the first time and we are grateful to have their voice and their support in the fight for the fate of our democracy this November,” Munoz said in a statement.
An aide to Obama pointed to her discussion last year with Oprah Winfrey to reflect her thinking still today — and why she would most likely never appear on a ballot herself, NBC News noted.
“Politics is hard,” she said in the Netflix special. “And the people who get into it … you’ve got to want it. It’s got to be in your soul because it is so important. It is not in my soul.”
In 2022, she told the BBC she “detests” questions about whether she’ll run for the White House.
During a 2020 interview on CNN, anchor Alisyn Camerota speculatively asked Jill Biden, “Maybe former first lady Michelle Obama?” amid conjecture about Biden’s possible running mate.
Jill Biden laughed, saying: “You know, I’d love it if Michelle would agree to it. But I — you know, I think she’s had it with politics. I don’t know. She’s so good at everything she does. That would — that would be wonderful.”
