Michelle Obama says she will not run for office

After enjoying vacation with Barack in the Virgin Islands and South Pacific, Michelle Obama made her first official public appearance yesterday since leaving the White House three months ago. The former first lady spoke about transitioning into her new life, what it was really like to move out of the White House and that she would never run for office. She avoided mentioning Donald Trump during her remarks.

Obama cited the wellbeing of her kids, Sasha and Malia, and the cutthroat nature of campaigning when she shut down the idea of running for office. “It’s all well and good until you start running, and then the knives come out,” she said during a Q&A at the AIA Architecture Conference in Orlando, Florida.

“Politics is tough, and it’s hard on a family,” she continued. “I wouldn’t ask my children to do this again because, when you run for higher office, it’s not just you, it’s your whole family.”
“Plus, there’s just so much more we can do outside of the office, because we won’t have the burden of political baggage,” she added.

The former first lady will still continue to work on issues she cares about, like her Let Girls Learn initiative and fighting violence against women around the world. “Public service will always be in our blood,” she said, but it will take a while for Obama to fully adjust to life as a private citizen.
“I’m approaching new life after the White House in the same way that I approached coming into it,” she explained. “I took a good year just to understand what this role means to other people and what spaces are out there, because one of the things that I’d never want to do is to be redundant in the work that I do and not add value, or to supplant any good work that’s already there.”

By Harpers Bazaar