Michelle Obama breaks silence on potential presidential run as aging, gaffe-ridden Biden urged to step aside
FORMER First Lady Michelle Obama has been forced to shutdown speculation that she'll run for president in 2024.
Obama, 60, previously said that she "detested" the question over whether she'd launch a bid to serve as commander-in-chief.
“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 her office, told .
“Mrs. Obama supports President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ re-election campaign.”
Obama has stayed a relevant public figure though Barack Obama, her husband and 44th president of the United States, was last in office in 2017.
Sources familiar with the discussions say she intends to assist the Biden campaign this fall, as she did four years ago, NBC reported.
“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,” Biden campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz said in a statement.
The announcement comes the same day as Super Tuesday when the largest number of US states hold primary elections.
What is Super Tuesday?
And what it means for the general election.
- Before the national general election is held on November 5, 2024, states hold primary elections where voters of each party can select that party's nominee
- The results of these primaries will dictate which candidate becomes the official nominee for both the Republican and Democratic Party at their national conventions in the summer
- On Super Tuesday, primaries are held in 15 states plus American Samoa, representing about one-third of the national electorate
- Because of how many primaries are held on Super Tuesday, the results are a reliable indicator of who will be each party's eventual nominee
- Presidential candidates who aren't nominated can still be represented by a third party, but a third-party candidate has never won an election
The former first lady recently expressed that she was terrified about the upcoming election on a podcast.
“What’s going to happen in this next election? I’m terrified about what could possibly happen, because our leaders matter," Obama told Jay Shetty on his podcast
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"Who we select, who speaks for us, who holds that bully pulpit, it affects us in ways sometimes I think people take for granted."
Obama reveled to Oprah in a discussion last year that she would not run for president because it was a hard job.
“Politics is hard,” she said in a 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.”
Also in a 2022 BBC interview, Obama said she “detests” questions about whether she will run for president.
'FRAIL' APPEARANCE
Biden has been captured tripping and making mistakes in public speeches five times in 2024.
One of ex-President Barack Obama's former aides came forward calling Biden "frail."
“If you watch Joe Biden speak, oftentimes he sounds frail and he sounds more frail than he used to, even in 2019 and 2020,” said Jon Favreau, chief speechwriter for former President Obama when Biden was vice president.
“The voice sounds frail, and he shuffles more because of the arthritis in his back,” Favreau said in a recent episode of the , a podcast he hosts with other former aides of Obama.
He also added that the oldest president in office appears “mumbly.”
A poll showed that 27% of Americans think Biden is too old to serve a second term, according to data from ABC News and .
Biden has also fallen while climbing into Air Force One on several occasions throughout his time in office
He also took a tumble when he tripped on a sandbag during the US Air Force Academy Graduation Ceremony in June last year.
After an investigation from January 2023 regarding mishandled classified documents was blamed on him being "an elderly man with a poor memory," Biden finally made a public remark.
"My memory is fine," he said at the White House on February 8, 2024.
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"Take a look at what I've done since I've become president."
The U.S. Sun has contacted Michelle Obama's office for comment.