A former Trump aide said that despite her previous insistence that she not run for the White House, Michelle Obama is a “completely reasonable” candidate for 2024.
A former Trump administration official this weekend raised the possibility of Michelle Obama succeeding President Joe Biden as the 2024 Democratic nominee, warning that the former first lady would be a staunch opponent of the Republican Party.
“If (Democrats) run Michelle Obama, that would put us in a very difficult position,” Monica Crowley, a former Trump aide, said at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando on Saturday.
They’ve come up with a candidate that’s perfectly acceptable, wildly popular, and immune to criticism.
Crowley, who was Treasury’s assistant secretary for public affairs under Donald Trump, appeared on a panel discussion alongside former White House physician-turned-House Representative Ronnie Jackson, conservative activist Jack Posobiek and California attorney Kurt Schlichter during the multi-day event. .
After throwing the popular Democratic first lady’s hat into the ring, Crowley explained how Obama would have positioned himself to make a bid for the White House in the years after her husband, Barack Obama, left the White House in early 2017.
“When you consider her position, she spoke as the (Democratic National Convention) keynote speaker in 2020,” Crowley claimed.
She’s written an autobiography and toured 50 cities, has huge deals on Netflix and Spotify, and has the voting rights group alongside Stacey Abrams.
Obama’s memoir “Becoming” sold more than two million copies in various formats within 15 days of publication, quickly becoming a bestseller.
It’s a testament to the Harvard-educated lawyer’s popularity, particularly among Democrats.
Monica Crowley made the remarks during a panel discussion Saturday at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Florida
She previously served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Public Affairs under Donald Trump (pictured with Donald Trump Jr. (left) and former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows (right)
She has been voted the most admired woman in YouGov’s global poll for three years in a row, and most recently won first place in December 2021.
And while Obama has publicly rejected the idea of running for her old husband’s seat, a recent Hill-HarrisX poll put her at the top of the list of likely candidates in 2024 if Biden chooses not to run.
The president, who has so far said he is running for re-election, will be 81 at the start of his second term.
The poll conducted in late November 2021 found Obama ranked second in the list of likely Democratic nominees, behind Vice President Kamala Harris.
But Crowley, a former Trump aide, put the spotlight on Harris’ flowery first year Saturday. She suggested that Obama would be a good replacement so as not to alienate black women, among the Democratic Party’s most loyal voters, according to Business Insider.
Obama has long been admired by Democrats and even independents, and would have gained instant name recognition if she had bid in 2024.
Despite insisting she wouldn’t run, Crowley warned her audience at the Republican event to be prepared for it and compared Obama’s profile-boosting activity that brought her back into the public eye after leaving the White House to the actions of Hillary Clinton — another rumored potential nominee in 2024.
For all those people who say, “Michelle Obama isn’t a politician, they’re making a lot of money now,” watch her closely because her trajectory is exactly what Barack Obama did before he ran for president and what Bill and Hillary Clinton both did, Crowley said.
“I think if she ran, it would be a very difficult situation for us,” she reaffirmed.
To run for president, Obama famously said during a leadership conference in Boston in 2018, “My sense is that, first and foremost, you have to want the job.”
She went so far as to say that she “never had a passion for politics,” adding, “I happened to be married to someone who had a passion for politics, and he would drug me by kicking and screaming in the arena.”
But despite her alleged aversion to running for president, Obama has entered the political arena several times — to a warm reception.
Obama was seen as a major asset to her husband’s successful presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012, including a lauded speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.
She also gave an impassioned speech endorsing Biden in 2020, claiming he’s the only person who can “put an end to this mess” in the Trump administration.
Most recently, Obama ran in the November midterm elections, throwing her big sway and her group When We All Vote behind an effort to get a million new people to the ballot box this year.
In late December, the potential Obama 2024 campaign got a boost from an unlikely ally – podcast host Joe Rogan.
“She’s wonderful, outspoken, intelligent, and the wife of the best president we’ve ever had,” Rogan said. “She can win.”
Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump has tagged other potential Republican front-runners for 2024 by winning the support of 59% in CPAC attendance.
The annual poll is seen as a leading indicator of who the party’s base favors.
The poll of 2,500 respondents found that the two most popular candidates occupied the same political district as Trump – like allies Mike Pompeo, Rand Paul and Christie Noem.
Trump’s victory came as no surprise — but he’s gained five percentage points more than last year — with Gov. Ron DeSantis, who delivered a rousing speech at the meeting Thursday, in second place at 28 percent.
That left the rest of the field as outsiders, with former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo getting two percent and Vice President Mike Pence one percent — along with Nikki Haley, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, Sens. Ted Cruz and Rand Paul.
But CPAC’s status as a hardline conservative caucus tends to skew the results toward the Trumpian wing of the party.
If Trump does not run, DeSantis gets 61%.
And the Republican Party is already taking advantage of the chances that Michelle Obama will be its opponent.
Two fundraising emails from the National Republican Senatorial Committee were sent to donors touting the possibility of another Obama in the White House.
An email obtained by Punchbowl News states that “left-wing Democrats know they will lose their congressional majority in November, so they want to take out Obama to save them in 2024.”
And the second read: “Rumors are spreading like wildfire that a certain person, someone who has already spent 8 years in the White House, is considering running for president in 2024.”
