"Michelle would leave me": Barack Obama admits the one thing his wife won't put up with
Barack Obama has joked about the one thing that would prompt his wife Michelle to leave him.
The former US president was speaking to a crowd of young leaders in Berlin, Germany, for an event organised by his non-profit the Obama Foundation on Saturday.
He explained that his organisation is non-partisan. “I’m not here to support any political party, I’ve held my last political office,” the 57-year-old told the town hall audience.
“Michelle would leave me if I ever ran for office again.”
Although the US constitution stated that “no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice”, there are ways that he could gain a third term as President.
According to Forbes, he could seek presidency through a non-elected route, such as becoming elected vice president or running as a cabinet member and then ascending via the Presidential Succession Act.
This is not the first time the 44th President of the United States has joked about Michelle leaving him. In 2017, he delivered the joke in his acceptance speech for the Profile in Courage Award.
“I also want to thank Michelle Obama for, after the presidency, sticking with me,” he said at the event. “Because I think she felt an obligation to the country to stay on, but once her official duties were over, it wasn’t clear.”
He added, “I love my wife, and I’m grateful for her, and I do believe that it was America’s great good fortune to have her as First Lady.”
The pair first met when they were working together at a law firm in 1989. They tied the knot three years later and went on to have two daughters, Malia and Sasha.
After leaving the White House in 2017, Michelle told PEOPLE that she and her husband have been enjoying quality time that they did not have as much of during their days as the President and the First Lady.
“We are finding each other again,” she said. “We have dinners alone and chunks of time where it’s just us – what we were when we started this thing: no kids, no publicity, no nothing. Just us and our dreams.”