“Michelle will never run for office. She is as talented a person as I know. You can see the incredible resonance she has with the American people. But I joke that she's too sensible to want to be in politics,” President Obama has revealed in one of his last in-depth interviews before stepping down.
He said that one of his most treasured memories of his two-term presidency was the day Usama bin Laden was finally hunted down and killed.
“There have been well-known moments like me walking across the colonnade and hearing the chants of 'USA' after we had gotten bin Laden, or being up on the Truman Balcony with my young staff after we got the Affordable Care Act passed,” he revealed.
Reflecting on other standout moments in the White House, he said: “There have been times just sitting in the Treaty Room reading letters from people who have a story to tell, a veteran who's not getting services they need [and] a young DREAM Act kid who describes how he's now gotten a degree and has gone back and is teaching in the school where he went, that move you deeply.”
In the interview conducted with Rolling Stones magazine, President Obama – who candidly describes himself as now being “very much in lame-duck status” when it comes to policy making decisions, as he counts down his final days in the White House – also said he believes it’s inevitable that marijuana will eventually be legalized in every US State.
“It is untenable over the long term for the Justice Department or the DEA to be enforcing a patchwork of laws, where something that's legal in one state could get you a 20-year prison sentence in another," he stated.
"So, this is a debate that is now ripe, much in the same way that we ended up making progress on same-sex marriage. There's something to this whole states-being-laboratories-of-democracy and an evolutionary approach. You now have about a fifth of the country where this is legal."
Asked if he had any advise for his successor Donald Trump, President Obama said: “The President needs to recognize that this is not about you. This is not about your power, your position or the perks, the Marine band.
"This is about this precious thing that we’ve inherited and that we want to pass on. And for me at least, that means you surround yourself with really good people, that you spend time learning and understanding what these issues are because they really actually have an impact on people.
“They're not games that we're playing. And that to the best of your ability, you're making the decisions that you think are right for the American people – even when they're not popular, even when they're not expedient.
"And the satisfaction you get from that is that when you leave this place, you can feel like you've been true to this immense privilege and responsibility that’s been given to you."