Barack Obama Says Michelle Obama Told Him ‘I Do Not Want You Running For President’ in 2008

We previously reported on some excerpts released from former President Barack Obama’s new book and conservative activist Candace Owens’ response.

Tonight he appeared on CBS’ “60 Minutes” to talk about the book and Scott Pelley read an excerpt from the book that seemed surprising to him.

Pelley said, “You’re surprisingly honest in the book about your wife’s opposition to you running for president in 2008, you quote her as saying, ‘The answer is no, I do not want you running for president. God Barack, when is it going to be enough?’ Did I get the tone right?”

Obama chuckles and said, “It was a little sharper than that, but it was pretty good Scott.”

Pelley continues, “‘And then she walks out of the room,’ why did that not stop you?”

“Look, it’s a legitimate question, keep in mind the context here. Just two years earlier, I had run for the US Senate, in an unlikely race. Two years before that I had run for Congress,” Obama explained.

“In a race you lost,” Pelley interjected. Obama agreed, “In a race I lost.”

Obama then added, “A couple years before that I had run for the state Senate. We’ve got two young kids, Michelle’s still working and I asked myself in the book, ‘How much of this is just megalomania?’ ‘How much of this vanity?’ ‘How much of this is me, trying to prove something to myself?'”

“Over time, she made a conclusion that [she] should not stand in the way… and she did so grudgingly,” Obama admitted.

In his new book, former President Barack Obama speaks about Michelle Obama’s opposition to his 2008 presidential run. He writes that she told him, “I do not want you running for president. God, Barack, when is it going to be enough?" https://t.co/w8kYpzvDAX pic.twitter.com/MakyXGg9qJ

— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) November 16, 2020