Barack Obama doesn’t expect to see his daughters, Malia and Sasha Obama, on any sort of electoral ticket anytime soon. The 59-year-old former President of the United States appeared on Monday’s episode of The Late Late Show With James Corden, where he talked about his 22-year-old and 19-year-old daughters’ White House experiences that he thinks will keep them from going into public service.
“First of all, them as teenagers having Secret Service guys follow them when they were going out on dates, I think probably has shut down their interest in public service,” he quipped. “They still have PTSD from guys talking into their wrist microphones with glasses as they’re trying to go to a music concert.”
The two-term president discussed some of the challenges that go along with running for and holding an office.
“You have to have a certain tolerance for nonsense and silliness and meanness, frankly, to go into public service,” he shared. “As a father, I want to protect my girls from that stuff. I think they are probably going to find other ways to serve rather than run for office themselves, but you never know. If they decided to do it, obviously I would be extraordinarily proud of them.”
The proud dad couldn’t help but gush about his daughters, adding, “They have turned into just exceptional young women. I could not be prouder of them, not just because they’re smart and accomplished, but they’re just kind people. They don’t have an attitude.”
Barack also shared what he and wife Michelle Obama feared most when he became president.
“That was the thing Michelle and I worried about most… are we going to end up with weird kids?” he quipped. “There are butlers in the White House and who has butlers? Michelle and my mother-in-law were very good about, ‘Listen, you have to make your own beds. You have to wake yourselves up.’ If we ever saw a hint of them somehow thinking they were special, my mother-in-law always had the best line about this. One time they were acting out, my mother-in-law looked at them and said, ‘Uh, you guys realize you haven’t done anything, right? The only reason we’re here is because your parents have done some things. You guys have done nothing.'”
