There’s a lot going on. The International Monetary Fund is warning that the world is in for “a major, negative shock” from Donald Trump’s tariffs. His staff can’t stop sharing state secrets on Signal (Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth) or lying (press secretary Karoline Leavitt) or destroying everything they touch (Vice President JD Vance). So, naturally, on her Sirius XM show over the weekend, Megyn Kelly was laser-focused on the issues: the Obamas’ marriage.
In conversation with the Daily Mail’s Maureen Callahan, a vocal critic of Michelle Obama, the two excoriated the former first lady’s recent candid comments about her marriage to former President Barack Obama. Kelly all but argued that the two, who have been married for 30 years and share two children, shouldn’t have married: “I think she and he married the wrong people,” Kelly said. “It’s amazing—every word she says about Barack Obama is negative. I can’t think of her just waxing poetic about him, complimenting, ‘He’s brilliant. He’s a great dad. He was the greatest president,’ whatever a normal wife of Barack Obama would say. Every time she opines, it’s something that reflects poorly on him.”
Callahan chimed in, “I can’t think of anybody I would go to for advice less than Michelle Obama. She really doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” I don’t think two people prattling on about something that doesn’t even vaguely concern them—the marriage of two people they do not know—are the real people who don’t know what they’re talking about. But of course, whether she’s complaining about Black Santa Claus or throwing a tantrum over Barack Obama wearing a $4,000 suit, ignorance has never stopped Kelly before.
Kelly’s comments aren’t as random as they seem, though: Earlier this year, Barack attended both Jimmy Carter’s funeral and Trump’s inauguration on his own. For years now, Michelle has been refreshingly honest about some of the challenges in their marriage, from fertility struggles to the sacrifices she had to make for her husband’s political career. After her high-profile absences, the internet began resurfacing some of those past comments, while tabloids re-upped the years-old fanfiction about Barack’s steamy, imagined affair with Jennifer Aniston.
Earlier this month, Michelle appeared on Sophia Bush’s Work in Progress podcast and addressed the divorce rumors: “They couldn’t even fathom that I was making a choice for myself that they had to assume that my husband and I are divorcing,” she said. Though she didn’t specify the “choice” in question, it seems to have been referencing her not attending the inauguration. Before that, on Michelle’s IMO podcast, which she co-hosts with her brother Craig Robinson, Michelle acknowledged her previous comments alluding to marital struggles with Barack but expressed no regret about marrying him: “If the odds were you’re going to be married to your partner for 50 years and 10 of those years could be bad … you’d sign up for it, you know? And that’s really how it works out.”
None of that sounds particularly interesting to me—just a very famous woman reflecting on 30 years of marriage and offering up insight and advice that I’m sure plenty of people might find useful.
But it is unsurprisingly very, very interesting to Kelly, in the same way that a lot of not especially pressing things suddenly become extremely compelling to conservative media personalities when the Trump administration is flailing. See, for instance, Fox News’ comically avoidant coverage of the stock market crashing thanks to Trump’s tariffs or, as The Daily Show highlighted earlier this month, the network’s frenzied coverage of trans athletes’ participation in increasingly obscure sports in lieu of any coverage of the tanking economy.
Funny how fascinating things like the Obamas’ marriage become to right-wing media when shit starts hitting the fan for their dear leaders!
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