Earlier this week, basketball star Dawn Staley asked former President Barack Obama if the country could “borrow” former First Lady Michelle Obama.
“Come on, let me borrow Michelle Obama for just four years! The First Gentleman looks good on you,” the South Carolina Gamecocks women’s basketball head coach said. In a post On Wednesday to social platform X.
Staley, who ran into former President Barack Obama at the United States Basketball Association’s 50th anniversary reception in Las Vegas this week, played eight seasons in the WNBA and won multiple Olympic gold medals.
Recent polls have shown that Michelle Obama would be the only Democratic candidate to win if former First Lady Barack Obama faced off against former President Donald Trump, and Staley’s comments join a growing number of American voters who want Michelle Obama to top the Democratic ballot.
Despite her popularity, Michelle Obama has repeatedly declined to run for the presidency.
“As former First Lady Michelle Obama has stated many times before, she will not be running for president,” her spokesperson said in a statement earlier this year. “Mrs. Obama supports the reelection campaigns of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.”
Michelle Obama, 60, has spoken publicly about the mutual negativity between the Obamas and Trump, who has expanded his political base by disparaging his predecessor.
Some of Trump’s Republican allies in Congress, such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, have floated the unfounded idea that Democrats would nominate the former first lady to replace Biden.
Trump currently leads Biden by just 1 percentage point, according to a tally of national polls by The Hill/Decision Desk headquarters.
But Biden, 81, has come under intense scrutiny following his shaky performance in a late June debate with Trump, 78. Some Democrats have begun publicly calling on the president to step aside and give Biden a seat in November’s presidential election to another candidate.
