Michelle Obama says her brother was the person who persuaded her to support her husband, former president Barack Obama, in seeking the presidency.
Speaking on the debut episode of her “IMO” podcast released Wednesday, the former first lady credited her co-host and older sibling Craig Robinson with changing her mind after she had initially been against the idea. “You talked me into supporting his run,” Obama said to Robinson on the show.
Obama added that her husband had been “smart enough to know” that he would need to sell Robinson on the idea, adding that her own take on the idea of a presidential campaign at the time was: “Nope. No way. This is crazy. We’ve done enough crazy stuff.”
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“You were like: ‘No, not doing it.’ You had grown up with Fraser Robinson,” Robinson said, referring to their father. “You wanted your girls to have sort of a similar upbringing with a father who would come home from work and play catch and take them to the park and do all these things.”
“And Barack came to me and he’s like, you know: ‘I can’t convince your sister to go along with this,’” Robinson said. “And I’m like: ‘Whoa, whoa, go along with what?’ And he’s like: ‘I think I’m gonna run for president.”
Robinson joked that he gave the then-Illinois senator some advice. “I said: ‘Listen, what you have to do is, first of all, let me talk to her—you don’t talk to her, let me talk to her!’”
Robinson also said that if he could convince his and Michelle’s mother, Marian Robinson, to support the idea, then there would be a “chance” of getting his sister to agree to it as well.
“That’s when I came and talked to you and just gave you your advice that you had given me back pretty much about following your passion and doing the things you love,” Robinson said. “But I think the thing that, that pushed it over the top was, I convinced you to not penalize him for being really good at what he does.”
Robinson, a basketball executive and coach, compared the situation to a basketball player who makes it to the NBA but whose wife doesn’t want him to play because “the travel is messed up.”
“I talked to you and mom at the same time, and both of you sat there reasonably mad and said I was right,” Robinson added, prompting a laugh from Obama.
Barack Obama launched his first presidential campaign in February 2007, ultimately securing the Democratic nomination and defeating the Republican candidate, John McCain, the following year.
