Michelle Obama Explains to Kylie Kelce Why She Will Never Run for President | Vanity Fair

Kylie Kelce and Michelle Obama have a lot in common: They’re both mothers of daughters, and both were dragged into the spotlight thanks to their husbands’ professions and now, both podcast hosts (Michelle’s In My Opinion with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson, which she co-hosts with her older brother, premiered last week.) A key difference between them, however, is that Michelle spent eight years parenting her daughters while living in the White House and serving as First Lady during husband Barack Obama’s two-term presidency.

Michelle and Kelce, who is currently very pregnant with her fourth daughter, bonded over the highs and lows of motherhood on the latest episode of Not Gonna Lie with Kylie Kelce, published Thursday.

When the Obamas moved into the White House, Sasha was 8 and Malia was 10, meaning they both spent their teenage years in the country’s most famous—and most restrictive, due to security needs—residence.

“The day-to-day kind of challenges that any parent has with teenagers, we had it on 100,” Michelle said of those years. “I was so glad when we got out of the White House. I wanted them to have the freedom of not having the eyes of the world on them.”

That experience is another reason Michelle says she will never run for president.

“So when people ask me would I ever run? The answer is no,” she said. “If you ask me that, then you have absolutely no idea the sacrifice that your kids make when your parents are in that role. Not only am I not interested in politics in that way, but the thought of putting my girls back into that spotlight when they are just now establishing themselves, it’s like, you know, ok, I think we’ve done enough. Question asked and answered, never gonna happen.”

In case that wasn’t clear enough, Michelle underlined her statement: “They’ve already served their time. It would be unthinkable. Nope.”

She also divulged some of the ways she tried to keep her daughters’ lives normal regardless of the very abnormal circumstances. For example, making sure that they learned how to drive, despite having the Secret Service to safely shuttle them wherever they needed to go.

“Once they got their license I told the agents they have to drive,” she said. “I’m sorry, but you only learn to drive by driving. You can’t learn it by osmosis in the backseat of an armored car. So once they got their license, we got a car for them and then the agents have to figure out, they have to follow this teenager now. To school, to parties, and it worked out.”

When another driver T-boned Sasha and totaled her car during this period, once she was assured that her daughter was ok, Michelle had to think about other bizarre consequences of an otherwise regular accident.

“I thought, ooh, I hope the lady that hit her is ok. Could you imagine? You T-bone, like, Sasha Obama. And then there are [Secret Service] agents?” She said. “So I’m also thinking about them in the world.”

Preparing her daughters for their post-presidential future was on her mind from the very beginning of her husband’s time in the Oval Office, she said.

“When we entered, I had to make sure that they’re normal and ready when this is all over and they have to get on a bus and make their own plane reservations and live in an apartment and be sane and live in the world,” she said. “I wanted to give my girls enough rope to live and be normal teenagers, but I was also worrying about them turning up on Page Six because they were doing what normal kids would do without that many eyes on them.”

Now, the girls are grown up and living on their own, but as any parent knows, that doesn’t mean that active parenting ends.

“They’re grown women in the world but a lot of our conversation now is, when do you feel like an adult? When does that happen?” Michelle said. Spoiler: Probably never. Michelle spoke of her bewilderment as a new mom, a feeling that, it turns out, doesn't really go away with time.

“When you leave the hospital with that baby, you think, are you for real?” she said. “You love these babies so much, immediately you’re connected and you think oh my god, all you have is me. I feel so bad for you. I wish you had a parent. You deserve more, because I don’t know anything, and now I’m in charge.”

She called Kelce “brave” for having a fourth child, and revealed that she was the one to pump the brakes at two.

“I just had to stop. I was like, I think I’ve been lucky with these two. Barack was like, we should have a third, and I was like, dude.”

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