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Barack Obama may never have been president if it weren’t for his wife Michelle’s older brother, Craig Robinson, who successfully convinced her to allow him to run for office.
The former first lady, 61, who on Wednesday launched her new podcast, IMO, with Robinson, recalled how he successfully talked her into supporting her husband’s presidential run.
“You talked me into supporting his run,” Michelle told her brother on the show’s first episode. “And he was smart enough to know that he needed to come to you and sell you on the idea.”
She added: “I couldn’t have gotten through eight years in the White House without my big brother.”
Obama ran for president in the 2008 election, going on to defeat Republican nominee John McCain to become America’s first Black president. He was re-elected for a second term in 2012.
He and Michelle, and their two daughters, Sasha and Malia, lived in the White House from 2009 to 2017.
Elsewhere in the episode, Michelle revealed that when she first began dating Obama, he had to learn “what on time was.”
“Because he was on that island time,” Craig teased of Obama’s Hawaiian roots.
“I’ve got this husband, who’s like, when it’s time to leave [at] three o’clock, he’s getting up and going to the bathroom,” Michelle quipped. “I was like, dude, a three o’clock departure means you’ve done all that. Don’t start looking for your glasses at the three o’clock departure.”
“But he’s improved over 30 years of marriage,” she noted, “but that was a ‘you must adjust.’”
The first two episodes of IMO are out now, with new episodes to be released on Wednesdays.
Each week, Michelle and Robinson will be “joined by a special guest to tackle audience questions with practical advice, terrific stories, and plenty of laughs. From dating and relationships to parenting and financial planning, IMO sees the iconic First Lady at her most relaxed and honest,” according to an official logline.
The second episode of IMO featured actor and writer Issa Rae (Insecure). Other guests scheduled to appear include Hollywood stars Keke Palmer, Tyler Perry, and Tracee Ellis Ross, as well as filmmakers Seth and Lauren Rogan; authors Jay Shetty, Glennon Doyle and Logan Ury; soccer star Abby Wambach; husband-and-wife retired NBA star Dwyane Wade and Gabrielle Union; Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky; radio host Angie Martinez; and editor and journalist Elaine Welteroth.