Embattled and increasingly bitter, Joe Biden angrily lashed out on Monday when he was asked – yet again – if he’d considering stepping down as the presumptive Democratic nominee for president.
‘Who else do you think could step in here and do this?’ he spat during a phone-in interview with MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski.
‘Run against me!’ he said, daring Democrat rivals. ‘Challenge me at the convention.’
The President should be careful what he wishes for.
According to recent polling, there is one Democrat who could successfully challenge him – and comfortably beat Donald Trump in November… if only she would.
A Reuters survey released last week showed that 55 percent of registered voters hold a favorable opinion of former First Lady Michelle Obama . Only 38 percent say the same of Biden.
‘Who else do you think could step in here and do this?’ Biden spat during a phone-in interview with MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski.
A Reuters survey released last week showed that 55 percent of registered voters hold a favorable opinion of former First Lady Michelle Obama. Only 38 percent say the same of Biden.
Michelle was also the only Democrat in the poll who commanded enough public support to potentially defeat the former president in an election.
In fact, she blew Trump out the water in a head-to-head matchup (50 percent to 39 percent).
Vice President Kamala Harris and other potential Biden substitutes – including ambitious California Governor Gavin Newsom and Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer – were either tied or lagged behind Trump.
Meanwhile, after last month’s disastrous CNN debate, Biden’s electoral prospects have slumped, with polls in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal showing Trump pulling ahead to a six-point national lead.
All together, these numbers now have many Democrats saying that ‘Michelle 2024’ is their only hope. And the former First Lady – intentionally or not – has given her fans some reason to believe she might actually throw her hat into the ring.
‘I am terrified about what could possibly happen, because our leaders matter,’ she said in January, railing against the threat of a second Trump term. ‘Who speaks for us, who holds that bully pulpit, it affects us in ways that sometimes I think people take for granted.’
Obama biographers – who spent hours interviewing those close to the family – still insist there is ‘absolutely nothing’ that would convince Michelle to pursue the presidency.
Michelle was also the only Democrat in the poll who commanded enough public support to potentially defeat the former president in an election.
Michelle has long been outspoken in her disdain for The Donald.
In a 2016 speech in New Hampshire – after the release of the infamous Access Hollywood tape that captured Trump suggesting women allow wealthy men to ‘grab them by the p****’ – our then out-going First Lady expressed her revulsion.
‘This wasn’t just locker-room banter,’ she said. ‘This was a powerful individual speaking freely and openly about sexually predatory behavior, and actually bragging about kissing and groping women, using language so obscene that many of us were worried about our children hearing it when we turn on the TV.’
Now, almost a decade later, and as doubts about President Biden’s fitness for office mount by the day, Michelle may find that the only way to stop her nightmare coming true is by running for president herself.
And it could happen – at least theoretically.
Obama biographers – who spent hours interviewing those close to the family – still insist there is ‘absolutely nothing’ that would convince her to pursue the presidency.
Her time in the White House was such an ‘ordeal’ nothing would persuade her to go back, Peter Slevin, author of ‘Michelle Obama: A Life’, told DailyMail.com.
‘It was eight years of an ordeal. And she asks: “Why would I do that again and try to be in charge?”,’ he said.
Her time in the White House was such an ‘ordeal’ nothing would persuade her to go back, Peter Slevin, author of ‘Michelle Obama: A Life’, told DailyMail.com.
Michelle appears to have a somewhat frostier relationship with the current First Family than her husband.
‘She doesn’t want to put herself through it for one thing, and she feels as though she’s done her time in the public eye.’
It’s easy to see why Michelle has been put off.
In her eight years as First Lady, she endured years of racist and sexist personal attacks.
In February 2011, talk radio host Rush Limbaugh went on a bizarre rant about her body, saying: ‘Our First Lady does not project the image of women that you might see on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.’
Months later, in December, former Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner was forced to apologize after he was overheard loudly discussing Michelle’s ‘large posterior’ at Reagan National Airport.
Even more distressing than the personal attacks were the conspiracy theories.
‘People would say, “Well, she’s not even really a woman. She’s a man”,’ Slevin said, ‘They bizarrely and grotesquely questioned her sexuality.’
And while the attacks continued, Michelle had to grapple with the sudden and profound loss of privacy and autonomy that any first family faces.
In particular, she struggled to raise her two young daughters Malia and Sasha with a degree of normalcy.
Some have suggested that Barack is the one still calling the shots inside the Oval Office, with critics making wild claims that he is puppeteering the President.
Michelle has long been outspoken in her disdain for The Donald. In a 2016 speech in New Hampshire – after the release of the infamous Access Hollywood tape that captured Trump suggesting women allow wealthy men to ‘grab them by the p****’ – our then out-going First Lady expressed her revulsion.
‘She has never in her entire life had any interest in elective office, and she was consistently, deeply uncomfortable with Barack wanting to be a politician right from the early 1990s onward,’ presidential biographer David Garrow told DailyMail.com. ‘She could not wait for them to get out of the White House.’
But, now faced with the Democrats’ greatest fear – a so-called ‘dictator’ Trump in the White House, and a grave ‘threat’ to democracy – could Barack persuade his wife that she is the party’s only hope?
Garrow doesn’t think so.
‘Barack knows way better than to even imagine trying that,’ he said.
Michelle has spoken openly about having to ‘call 12 people’ to even go on a walk – and how she hated the invasion of her privacy.
‘We can’t do the ordinary things of life, you know, like go to a movie theater,’ she said earlier this year. ‘I joked in Covid when people asked ‘when we were all in quarantine how did it feel?’ and I was like well, it was kind of easy for us because we’ve lived in quarantine for like, you know, a decade!’
Balancing her strong political beliefs with her desire for a private life must undoubtedly create a complex internal conflict for Michelle, especially as the Obamas left the White House, but not politics or Washington DC.
Michelle struggled to raise her two young daughters Malia and Sasha with a degree of normalcy.
The couple purchased a property in the upscale Kalorama neighborhood in the nation’s capital after Trump’s 2020 election – and President Obama is a sporadic presence at the Biden White House.
In May, he was a surprise guest at a 500-person state dinner held in honor of a Presidential delegation from Kenya.
Some have even suggested that Barack is the one still calling the shots inside the Oval Office, with critics making wild claims that he is puppeteering the President.
A Los Angeles fundraiser in June hardly helped the rumor mill – as Obama was filmed ushering Biden off stage after the 81-year-old commander-in-chief appeared to freeze and stare out over the crowd.
‘Obama has plenty to deal with. I call him Biden’s boss,’ Trump said at a New Hampshire last year.
Obama has joked about the possibility, telling late-night comedian Stephen Colbert in 2020 that he’d thought about secretly serving out a ‘third term’.
‘If I could make an arrangement where I had a stand-in, a front man or front woman, and they had an earpiece in and I was just in my basement in my sweats looking through the stuff, and then I could sort of deliver the lines, but somebody else was doing all the talking and ceremony, I’d be fine with that,’ he said.
In February, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick pushed a new conspiracy theory that a Democratic ‘deep state’ run by Barack was seeking to replace Biden with Michelle.
‘I’ve said for over a year many times that Joe Biden would not be on the ticket and Michelle Obama would be the likely nominee,’ Patrick posted on X. ‘It’s clear […] they had to take him down to give them a chance in November.’
For her part, Michelle seems eager to keep out of politics. She now runs her non-partisan ‘When We All Vote’ initiative, campaigning to increase voter turn-out in underrepresented communities, and largely steers clear of public political events.
As for the Bidens, she appears to have a somewhat frostier relationship with the current First Family than her husband.
Michelle was reportedly outraged by Bidens’ treatment of her close friend Kathleen Buhle, who suffered through a contentious divorce from Biden’s son Hunter in 2017.
Sources also claimed that Michelle was disturbed by Hunter striking up an affair with his late brother Beau’s widow, Hallie.
Michelle was reportedly outraged by Bidens’ treatment of her close friend Kathleen Buhle, who suffered through a contentious divorce from Biden’s son Hunter in 2017.
Michelle reportedly called the fraternal overlap ‘weird s***’, according to Axios.
The Obamas may seem perfectly placed to sweep back into politics and lead the Democrats to victory, but there are clearly significant hurdles.
In the coming weeks and days, if Biden does decide to end his 2024 run, leaving Democrats desperately searching for someone to see off Trump, there’s little doubt they’ll come knocking on Michelle’s door.
The question is: Will she answer their call?