Michelle Obama said she is worried about the potential results of the 2024 election.

She appeared on an episode of On Purpose With Jay Shetty, the podcast hosted by British podcaster Jay Shetty. During the episode, she listed the fears that keep her up at night.

“What’s gonna happen in this next election?” Michelle asked. “I am terrified about what could possibly happen because our leaders matter. Who we select, who speaks for us, who holds that bully pulpit, it affects us in ways that sometimes I think people take for granted.”

“The fact that people think that government, ‘Eh, does it really even do anything?’— and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, does government do everything for us, and we cannot take this democracy for granted,'” the former First Lady added. “And I worry sometimes that we do. Those are the things that keep me up.”

Obama told Shetty that knitting often puts her in a meditative trance, helping her deal with the stress of the news.

Even though she did not namecheck a candidate, conservative voters assumed that her comments were directed toward Donald Trump, leading to a major backlash on X.

“It could not get much worse than the current guy,” the conservative political commentator Tomi Lahren wrote on X. “But Michelle knows that she is part of the evil duo setting the agenda. Joe [Biden] is the vegetable placeholder.”

The YouTube comments section of the podcast episode has shown more positive reactions to her comments.

“I enjoyed this interview so much. Thank you Jay,” one user wrote. “I’ll watch this multiple times until I am able to break it down and get the most of it. There’s no simplicity in Michelle’s words, she is deep.”

Last April, Michelle talked about her difficult 30-year marriage with her husband, Barack Obama, to Gayle King on CBS Mornings.

She noted that her children, Malia and Sasha Obama, complicated her relationship with her husband even more. Michelle said that her belief is that they should become self-sufficient and learn about gratitude, compassion and empathy while also teaching them how to discover what makes them happy.

Last summer, Michelle shared on X her disappointment in the Supreme Court’s ruling that banned affirmative action in higher education. She described her struggles of fitting in as one of the only black students at Princeton University in the 1980s.

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