Former first lady Michelle Obama said in an interview Monday that the 2024 election is among the things that keep her up at night.
Obama, who turns 60 later this month, sat down with Jay Shetty for more than an hour for an episode of his On Purpose podcast.
She never used former President Donald Trump's name, but told Shetty she feared Americans would take “democracy for granted,” echoing concerns expressed by President Joe Biden during his speech at Valley Forge on Friday.
“What's going to happen in this next election?” “I'm afraid of what might happen because our leaders matter,” Obama said.
She continued: “Who we choose speaks for us.” “Whoever holds that bully pulpit, it influences us in ways that I sometimes take for granted.”
Former first lady Michelle Obama told podcaster Jay Shetty that she was “scared” about the 2024 election and expressed concerns that Americans were taking democracy for granted, but did not mention former President Donald Trump by name
Obama sat down with podcaster Jay Shetty (pictured), who asked her what kept her up at night. The former first lady said, “There's such a thing as knowing too much,” which she said is definitely the case when your husband is president of the United States
“You know, the fact that people think that the government, uhhh, you know, doesn't really do anything, and I'm like, 'Oh my God, is the government doing everything for us,'” she continued. “And we can't take that democracy for granted. And sometimes I worry that we do.”
Before mentioning the 2024 election, Obama said she also feared war in “too many regions,” artificial intelligence, climate change, education and people spending too much time on their phones.
“Will people vote and why don’t they vote?” she also said.
“I mean, these are the things that keep me informed,” Obama said.
Her status as a former first lady, she said, also worries her more.
“There is such a thing as knowing too much,” Obama said. “And when you've been married to the president of the United States, who knows everything about everything in the world, sometimes you just want to switch off.”
“I don't want to know what was in that folder you just got that silenced you, you know?” “I don't want to know why security just stopped you,” she continued. “I mean, it could be all sorts of things that come across the desk of the leader of the free world, right? So I know a lot about what’s going on and what keeps me informed are the things I know.”
Since leaving the White House in 2017, Obama said she took up knitting – a pandemic-era hobby – and took up tennis to calm her mind.
“I have developed habits that stop my brain from thinking,” she said.
“When I learn something physical, my mind shuts down,” she noted, referencing her efforts to play tennis. “Nothing stops me more than running after a green ball.”
Michelle Obama's concerns about the 2024 election come after The Washington Post reported Saturday that former President Barack Obama attended an intimate lunch with Biden in recent months and “came alive” warning the president that his campaign Dealing with the threat from Trump must be in full swing.
Trump has outperformed his Republican rivals in the GOP primary and is ahead of the Democratic president in a number of key swing state polls.
Biden delivered his first major swipe at Trump of 2024 when he spoke Friday from Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, a crucial site in the Revolutionary War.
A day before the third anniversary of the Capitol insurrection, the president warned that Trump posed a threat to democracy.
“Donald Trump's campaign is obsessed with the past, not the future.” “He is willing to sacrifice our democracy and put himself in power,” Biden said.
At a campaign rally Friday night in Iowa, Trump fired back, telling his supporters that Biden “stuttered” in his Jan. 6 speech on the issue.
“He’s going bah bah bah, he’s a threat to democracy,” Trump said, mimicking Biden’s childhood speech impediment.