Michelle Obama Says She Is Unlikely To Run For President
“If I were interested in it, I would say it.”
Michelle Obama held an in-depth conversation with Oprah Winfrey in what will be her last interview as First Lady. Their chat aired Monday on CBS and saw Obama distance herself from following husband Barack in running for the Presidency.
Asked about the widespread hope that she may run in the future, Obama said it was unlikely. "No, no," she said. "Look, that's one thing I don't do. I don't make stuff up. I'm not coy. I'm pretty direct. If I were interested in it, I would say it. I don't play games. People don't understand how hard this is, and it's not something [where] you just cavalierly ask a family to do it again."
As for the Trump family, Obama said that she would support the President-elect ("Barack and I are so supportive of this transition, because no matter how we felt going into it, it is important for the health of this nation that we support the commander-in-chief,") but remained critical of the comments Trump made during the election. "To have a candidate for the presidency speaking about women in such terms was not a normal thing, and so my response, in light of what I was seeing from my female staff, what I was hearing from my daughters, their reaction to it, for me, required a different kind of response," she said. "You can't just stand before people and just give a regular political speech."
She also stated that she is open to helping Melania Trump, in the same way that she was helped by her predecessor, Laura Bush. "My offer to Melania was, 'You really don't know what you don't know until you're here, so the door is open.'"
You can see a clip of the interview above, and many more via OWN.