Megyn Kelly said that if Michelle Obama launches her candidacy for the 2024 presidential election, “it’s a whole new ballgame.”
“There’s no question she’s more talented than Joe Biden is politically. No question,” Kelly added during Tuesday’s episode of her SiriusXM podcast, “The Megyn Kelly Show.”
Though Kelly said she’s unsure whether or not the former first lady would vie for the commander in chief role, she called Obama “a powerful Democratic weapon” during her husband’s two terms in the White House.
“Whether it works this time as a pundit, I remain skeptical,” Kelly said.
The former Fox News personality pointed to Obama’s appearance on Jay Shetty’s “On Purpose” podcast as a hint that she could launch her presidential bid.
“She has nothing to promote,” Kelly pointed out. “She has no book, she has no event, so that means she called them and said, ‘I have something to say.’”
“Why is she saying it? To help Joe Biden? Or to help herself?” Kelly said speculating that going on Shetty’s podcast would “lay the foundation for her emergence on the national scene in some political way.”
“Very interesting she should resurface now,” Kelly added.
During the interview with Shetty, published Monday, Obama said that she’s “terrified about what could possibly happen” in the 2024 presidential election.
“Our leaders matter, who we select, who speaks for us, who holds that bully pulpit. It affects us in ways that I think sometimes people take for granted,” added the 59-year-old former lawyer.
“We cannot take this democracy for granted and sometimes I worry that we do,” Obama said, not directly mentioning Donald Trump. “Those are the things that keep me up.”
After watching the clip, Kelly said that “all the things she’s talking about…are about rhetoric.”
“That’s all her husband did. That’s all he had. He was a talented orator,” Kelly said of the 44th US President. “No wonder she’s touting that as the thing we need in a president,” the podcast host added of Michelle Obama.
“But that’s not really what we’re electing in a president. We’d really like policies that make sense,” Kelly said.
Rumors have been swirling that Obama could run for president since last year.
In September, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz predicted that Obama could be “parachuted in” at the Democratic National Convention in August 2024.
The Republican politician noted that the DNC convention will be held in Chicago — Obama’s hometown — and argued that it is the perfect “opportunity to parachute someone in” to replace Biden.
Meanwhile, just this week top JPMorgan strategist Michael Cembalest, who heads the market and investment strategy unit in the Wall Street bank’s asset management division, made the bold forecast in his list of “Ten Surprises” for 2024 that Biden will not will not run for re-election.
Cembalest surmised that 81-year-old Biden will drop out of the race “sometime between Super Tuesday [March 5] and the November election, citing health concerns.”