Former first lady Michelle Obama isn’t prepared for the 2024 presidential election.
On Jay Shetty’s On Purpose, Obama opened up about what keeps her up at night. Besides everyday horrors, she says the upcoming election results have her “terrified,” USA Today reports. “Our leaders matter. Who we select, who speaks for us, who holds that bully pulpit – it affects us in ways that sometimes I think people take for granted,” she told Shetty.
“I am terrified about what could possibly happen.”
Her fear stems from the lack
of voters’ trust, those who feel their vote doesn’t matter.“The fact that people think that government—’eh, does it really even do anything?’—and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, does the government do everything for us, and we cannot take this democracy for granted,'” she said. “And I worry sometimes that we do. Those are the things that keep me up.”
Before touching on other sensitive topics like life after the White House and her marriage to Barack Obama, the mom of two took a jab at her husband’s predecessor, Donald Trump.
Without naming names, she took a dive into some of the pending investigations and charges “politicians” are facing, alluding that given the person, the process isn’t the same.
“The bars are different for people in life. That I’ve learned,” Obama said, according to Business Insider.
“Other people can be indicted a bunch of times and still run for office. Black men can’t. You just learn to be good. And in the end, you benefit from that extra resilience.”
The “tone and tenor” of leadership is something else she is concerned with.
“We can’t just say what the first thing that comes to our minds,” she told Sherry. “That is not authentic to me. That’s childish, and we see childish leadership right before us. What that looks like and how that feels, where somebody is just base, and vulgar and cynical in a leadership position.”
Obama also advised people to stop looking at her and her husband as the ideal couple
, saying they have made a lot of mistakes. “I don’t want people looking at me and Barack like hashtag couple goals and not know that no, no, there are some broken things that happen even in the best of marriages,” she said.Watch the full episode on YouTube.