Former first lady Michelle Obama is reportedly unwilling to publicly campaign for President Biden as he seeks re-election. A new report out today explains that Obama is reluctant in part because of the way the Biden family treated her close friend and Hunter’s ex-wife Kathleen Buhle.
Obama has been off the campaign trail and not nearly as involved as she was in 2020. The two sources familiar with the relationship said Obama’s disdain for partisan politics also plays a role in her absence this election cycle.
Obama reportedly told Hunter’s ex-wife that she had been wronged by the Biden family after the details emerged from Buhle’s 22-year marriage to Hunter.
Here is part of Axios’ breakdown of the situation:
Michelle Obama also was initially reluctant to campaign for Biden after he became the Democratic nominee in 2020, people familiar with the situation told Axios.
Biden’s team says the relationship between the families is strong, pointing to public displays of camaraderie that continue today. But the sources told Axios that the relationship changed in 2015.
That was when then-Vice President Biden was weighing a presidential run, and President Obama was not encouraging it.
It also was the year Biden’s son Beau died of cancer, setting off years of tumult within the family that included Hunter Biden and Buhle’s divorce in 2017.
Former President Barack Obama makes posts about Biden, praising him and encouraging people to vote for him, while Michelle has not posted anything about Biden’s re-election campaign.
Yesterday President Biden announced important new immigration actions to help bring relief and stability to American families. Some of them build on the DACA program Joe and I announced in 2012, which helped lift the shadow of deportation for hundreds of thousands of Dreamers… https://t.co/S2au0cIdk2
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) June 19, 2024
Axios continued, reporting that Michelle said:
Buhle had to deal with Hunter’s drug use and infidelity — and then Biden family members blamed Buhle for some of the salacious details of his behavior becoming public.
The former first lady participated in the virtual DNC convention in 2020, but it remains to be seen whether she will do so again in 2024. A spokesperson for Obama declined to comment when asked if the former first lady would speak at the Democrats’ convention in her hometown of Chicago.
In the report, Axios adds that in the fall of 2017, Barack Obama attended a fundraiser in Wilmington, Deleware, for Beau Biden’s Foundation without Michelle.
The spokesperson for the former first lady attempted to throw cold water on the report, saying:
The former first lady supports Biden’s re-election and added: “she is friends with Kathleen and with the Bidens. Two things can be true.”
The counterpoint could be that Michelle’s disdain for former President Trump encouraged her to campaign to get him out of office rather than her friendship with the Bidens.
It begs the question, though, why would this report come out on the day of the first presidential debate of the 2024 cycle? There have been rumors that if Biden completely flails during the first debate, the Democrats could replace him with a more vibrant option, the Democrat National Committee convention. As of now, the chances of that happening remain slim, but it is something to keep an eye on as the convention gets closer.
