How Barack Obama Told His Family He’s Running for President

Let's go back to Chicago, Southside, Euclid Avenue. Yes, sir. Y'all slept in a room three inches apart your whole life. Yeah. Your husband said y'all was the black Leavitt the Beaver. That's right. Explain that. Well, it's spoken from a man whose life was upside down in so many ways. I mean, you know, he didn't know his father, grew up a biracial kid in Hawaii, you know. I mean, so his world was, his upbringing was so completely unconventional, right, compared to us. And then to meet us and to come to 74th and Euclid, you know, it felt like, OK, dinner was at 6, you know. There was healthy conversation. Dad came home from work, you know. Now, we were the broke Leavitt the Beavers. You know, I mean, we were living above our aunt, you know. My dad was driving his Deuce and a quarter, you know, until it went into the ground, you know. Guys, it was a small apartment. It was really a one-bedroom apartment that we converted into two bedrooms. And we used the main living room, split and made our two bedrooms together. The room that was supposed to be the bedroom was my mother and father's bedroom. And then the dining room was our living room. And our kitchen. We just made a house. We created a house. Yeah, right, right. But I will tell you, we used to do everything. I mean, we used to hit balls in there, shoot baskets. We thought the place was huge. You didn't know no better. Slide down the hallway in the socks. Did you put the hanger on the door as a basketball hoop? Oh, my God. We put the hanger on the hoop. But before we put the hanger on the hoop, we used the lamp and a Nerf ball as the ball. And the lamp was the basket until we forgot and left the ball in there. And mom turned the light on and it burned up the door. I think that was you. The ledge on the door sill on the top, that was Craig's first hoop, right? So the goal, my dad would put a penny on the ledge of the door. And he had to jump and get it. And if he could jump and get it, he could keep it, right? You got your ass. My ply. I met you now. You're bound. Growing up like that, humble beginnings, your senior sister, from South Side of Chicago on the way to the White House. What's your feeling? Well, when it happened, so it was sort of a progression. And so if you can imagine, when she met Barack, he was just a lawyer. And he had just done some community organizing, but he was just like a regular guy. He was just a nice young man. He was a nice young man. And he was at our house for Thanksgiving early on in their relationship, early on. And I was playing the big brother. So I was like, come here, man. Let me talk to you, bro. So what do you think? What do you think you're going to do with this? I'm going to have lots of plans. You're going to stick with law? He said, well, you know, I think I might go into politics. I was like, oh. And I said, hmm. He said, you want to be like a mayor or an alderman or something? He was like, no, no. I was just thinking I'd maybe run for Congress, senator maybe, and then maybe even run for president. And I was like, shh, man. You don't want to talk like that. If my aunt Gracie heard you, she'd think you crazy. So don't tell too many people that. How old was he at this time? Huh? Barack at this time, how old was he? How old? So how old was he when you all met? He had been like 26, 27. And I was a year younger than him. But I didn't realize that. I just figured we were around the same age. And I was like, you can't say stuff like that around here. People will think you crazy. And lo and behold, jump ahead. Jump ahead a few years. And I'm in Orlando when he gave the big speech. I'm in Orlando for AAU Nationals. I'm going recruiting. I'm at Northwest, and I asked Bill Carmody, who's our head coach there, I was like, can I have the evening off for Rock's doing his speech? He was like, of course. And I'm in my hotel room, shorts, t-shirt, and I'm sweating, nervous. And just because I wanted him to do well. And he knocks it out of the ballpark. And the next day, people are saying he could eventually run for president of the United States. It's still, when I think about that, it just never really hit me until we were on our way to the inauguration, not the inauguration, but the election night when he won in Chicago. The whole time, we're talking like we are now. Nobody could believe it. Even Barack, to me, couldn't believe it. Because we're sitting in the kitchen at their house, waiting for the results. And we thought, oh, this is going to be a late night. It's going to be like 2 in the morning before we find out. We had just finished dinner, so it figures about 7 o'clock. And all of a sudden, everybody's phones start buzzing. And we always kept our phones away from the table when the kids were there, and we were all talking. And everybody's phone starts buzzing. Barack picks up his phone, looks at it, and puts it back down, comes back, sits at the table. And we're all talking. And he says, well, looks like we won. I'm setting it just like that. You remember that? The way he said it was so cool. It was like, I knew I was going to win. And it didn't register until we were in the motorcade going down to the election night. But that was a long story. I wanted to tell you that story to say, through all of that, my sister's been the same person, really. People just got to know how smart, how accomplished, how thoughtful, how generous he is. And it's been great. I was getting this on tape. It's been great to watch. It's a proud moment for a big brother. I spent all my life being Craig Robbins' little sister. Poor thing. Because he was Mr. Basketball Star, Mr. All-Ivy. And we went to the same college. I came on campus. And he was like, oh, you're Craig's little sister. You're Craig's little sister. I'm like, yeah. And I was proud of it. And now. When did he become? It was that night. That night, it was like, you Michelle Obama's brother. I was like, yes, I am. There you go. For you, excitement, hesitation, nervousness, what's going through your mind? Because this is a huge shift, the first in the history. And it's just a crazy history. But what are your inner thoughts during that time? I mean, it was really all over the place. And it's not just that night. I mean, the run to the presidency is a two-year process. I mean, you start in Iowa. First of all, you start announcing. And that's a battle, right? Because your husband tells you that he's going to do something that's going to fundamentally change your life. And my first reaction was, hell no. No, why? Why would we want to do that? We're the Beavers. We're the Cleavers. We're doing just fine. We live in a lovely house. We're near family. Girls are good. Why would you want to go and do something that crazy? People, it wasn't that I didn't believe in him. I didn't believe America was ready. And so much of, I knew he was talented. I knew he was gifted. I knew he would be phenomenal. I knew he had that perfect combination of sharp intellect, ability to connect, the charisma, all this stuff that we miss. He had it. So my first reaction was no. And it took my brother. It took a whole lot of people to convince me that when somebody has that kind of passion for something, I didn't want to be the one to say no. And then I didn't want fear to guide my decision, because that's what it was all about. It wasn't that I didn't believe in him. I was just scared. And so I had to think long and hard, well, if I wasn't married to him, I would want somebody like him to run. He's the person that we say, so I can't be selfish and be like, I want this all to myself. So there was that part of it. And then, just like anything, I'm competitive. So we're going to run. We're going to win. I'm going to help. I'm going to be good at this. So then you just throw yourself in, campaigning in Iowa, giving speeches. Some of it was fun. Some of it was crazy. A lot of it uplifting, because we were in parts of the country where you would think that a black couple with the name Obama coming through would just be turned away. But the truth of our nation that I want to remind people is that folks find it hard to hate up close. And when you get to know people, and you're sitting in their kitchen tables, and they're talking like we're talking, you could see people start to melt almost. You hear our story, how we grew up, how Barack grew up. And you get a chance for people to unpack and get beyond race. Watching that transformation was empowering. I mean, it was hopeful. It was all the things you want to believe about this country, and we were seeing it. So there was that jubilation. And then there was just when they started going after us. Now I'm pissed. You're going after me. You're going after my husband. You now take this thing that's really good and you play with it. And that was true on the Democratic side and on the Republican side. That was true for white leaders, and it was true for black leaders, too. A lot of people were disappointing. A lot of people let you down. But then in the end, it was just like by the time you get two years in, you want to win. You want to get it done, and you're ready for the work. So it was a roller coaster. And at the core of it was how am I going to raise these little girls and make sure that they're sane through it? I was like, we can get through anything, but what would this do to them? Because I wanted them to come out on the other end as two people I would know and recognize. And that's what having our mom move with us to the White House. I mean, Barack and I, we're solid parents, but I didn't want the girls to come home to that big house to strangers when we were working or traveling. You know, there's just something about, you know, that house is like, they're butlers and florists and ushers and all this stuff. And I was like, this is not normal. We, you know, we grew up sharing a bedroom. It's like, my kids cannot think that this is normal. So the one way to make sure that that was true was to have them come home to Marianne Robinson sitting there going, okay, you know what she's supposed to do. Get your homework done, you know? Plus that dose of, I love you, I love you more than anybody. My mom got in the car every day in their motorcade and rode to school to drop them off because I didn't want them riding to school with a bunch of security. And I wanted them to be in the car, just even if nothing was said, just have your grandmother there. And she was that for us. And that gave me the security that, okay, we'll get through this, you know? So it was all of it, all of the feeling.