Barack Obama blames Trump for ‘tension’ in his marriage. Experts say Michelle is right to complain

President Donald Trump has been dividing American families ever since he came down the golden escalator in Trump Tower to launch his winning 2016 campaign — but few would have imagined the Obamas to be among them.

Well, guess again. Former President Barack Obama made headlines recently when he told The New Yorker that the pressure on him to campaign for fellow Democrats against Trump and MAGA ahead of November’s high-stakes midterm elections was creating “genuine tension in our household” because former first lady Michelle Obama “wants to see her husband easing up and spending more time with her.”

Strategists from both parties tell The Independent they couldn’t blame Michelle for wanting to keep her husband out of the political rough-and-tumble around the battleground races for control of the Republican-led House and Senate, which could lead to a down-and-dirty third Trump impeachment trial if Democrats prevail in the lower chamber.

New York City-based Republican consultant Evan Siegfried agreed that Michelle Obama “has every right to be upset,” and even took it a step further by using a famous bit of American movie dialogue to illustrate her situation.

“Just when I thought I was out — they pull me back in,” Siegfried imagined Michelle saying to compare her plight to that of Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone character, griping about his thwarted efforts to break away from the Mafia in 1990’s The Godfather, Part III.

“That’s gotta be what she’s feeling,” said Siegfried, a self-described moderate and author of 2016’s GPS GOP: How to Find the Millennials and Urban Voters the Republican Party Needs to Survive.

Democratic consultant Christopher Lee, who’s based in Las Vegas, said there’s “always that issue in politics where spouses sacrifice a great deal of their lives,” adding, “At some point, I imagine, it gets tiresome.”

Lee noted that the Obamas have been living in the spotlight ever since Barack Obama — then an obscure state senator from Illinois — delivered the keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention that launched his meteoric rise in politics.

“I don’t fault Michelle at all,” Lee said. “There’s a time where you’ve done your bit for king and country.”

Longtime California Republican consultant Matt Rexroad said few outside politics could “fully understand the demands that campaigns put on people.”

“Politics has an insatiable demand on your time and I’m sure Mrs. Obama is feeling that,” Rexroad said.

But Rexroad also gets why the former president would find it hard to resist and cited the impact of political “hit pieces.”

“I’ve seen campaigns spiral out of control because a spouse saw something in a Facebook post,” he said. “When people are saying bad things about their loved ones, emotions tend to rise.”

And the tension between Obama and Trump has been on a boil for quite some time. New York City-based Democratic consultant Jake Dilemani noted that Trump has “for more than a decade been very nasty to (Barack) Obama,” including by pushing the unfounded “birther” conspiracy theory that he wasn’t born in the U.S., as the Constitution requires of presidents.

“Any time [Obama’s] name is mentioned, the guy [Trump] can’t help himself,” Dilemani said.

Trump’s February social media post of a video depicting the Obamas as apes was just “one of the latest examples,” he said.

At the time, Obama responded to the AI apes depiction, telling podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen, “there’s this sort of clown show that’s happening in social media and on television. And what is true is that there doesn’t seem to be any shame about this among people who used to feel like you had to have some sort of decorum. And a sense of propriety and respect for the office, right? So that’s been lost.”

And in the New Yorker piece, Obama explained that while he “doesn’t take it personally,” he is “always offended when my wife and kids get dragged into things, because they didn’t choose this…That’s a line that even people whose politics I deeply reject, I would expect them to care about. I would never talk about somebody’s family in that way.”

Said Dilemani: “The activity here is certainly hotter than it has been in years. As a married man, I can tell you that if your partner has concerns, you have to address those concerns, whatever they may be. That’s part of the deal of being married.”

Barack Obama’s New Yorker interview followed divorce rumors that swirled last year after Michelle was very noticeably absent from some major public events, including former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral.

In April 2025, Michelle Obama brushed off the rumors and lamented that “people couldn’t even fathom that I was making a choice for myself.” During a July podcast featuring her husband, she denied their relationship was on rocks.

“There hasn’t been one moment in our marriage where I’ve thought about quitting on my man,” she said, while he joked, “She took me back!” adding, “It was touch and go for a while.”

Barack Obama also said in September that working on his presidential memoirs had put him “in a deep deficit with my wife, so I have been trying to dig myself out of that hole by doing occasionally fun things.”

Trump ally and former campaign surrogate Joe Borelli exulted over the more recent friction Obama acknowledged to The New Yorker, saying, “Any time the Democratic narrative arc approaches the gossip pages about his marriage, it’s a good day for Republicans.”

“This just underscores how Trump derangement syndrome can infect even the highest echelons of Democratic society,” said Borelli, a former Republican member of the New York City Council who now writes columns for the Trump-friendly New York Post.

“If I could pull Barack aside I’d say, ‘Dude, just worry about your family’ — but that is the mind virus that is TDS.”

But New York City-based Democratic consultant Jon Reinish downplayed the likelihood of a real division in the Obama household, saying that the former president has a “sly sense of humor” and that “if there were true fireworks, something tells me he wouldn’t be talking about it.”

“I’m sure she would prefer that he stay at home and leave politics behind. She thinks it’s a dirty business — and she’s not wrong,” he said.

“As a spouse, I do not fault her for that but as a Democratic strategist, they could make so much of a difference if that friction were not in that house, when everything is on the line and he can make a difference.”

Obama has campaigned for Democratic candidates across the country in every election cycle since he left the White House in 2017, including last year, when he appeared at rallies in Virginia and New Jersey for Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill, respectively, both of whom went to win their gubernatorial races.

He’s also recently helped raise money and appeared in videos to support redistricting efforts in blue states after Trump spurred efforts to gerrymander red states in favor of Republican House candidates.

The length and intensity of Obama’s role in post-presidential politics easily eclipses that of any modern commander in chief, with some experts citing his relative youth — he’s 64 — and popularity.

A Gallup poll last year found 59 percent of Americans had a favorable opinion of Obama, putting him ahead of any other living U.S. president and 7 percentage points over the No. 2 choice, Republican George W. Bush.

“Democrats want him out on the field,” Lee said of Obama. “I liken him to U2. Those guys are in their mid-60s but they still fill stadiums and President Obama is much the same way.”

Lee also hailed Obama for having “held onto the soul of the Democratic Party and called him the “perfect foil to the insanity of the Trump administration.”

“He isn’t just cool but he’s also incredibly gifted as a political leader,” he said. “Unlike many presidents who desperately want a legacy but don’t have one, Obama has one — and it’s Obamacare.”

Rexroad acknowledged that Obama was “probably the best public speaker we’ve had in the White House in a long time — certainly since Reagan — and every Democrat in the country would love to him campaign for them.”

Siegfried agreed that “Obama’s young, he’s eloquent, he stays on message, he knows how to connect with people in a crowd and excite them” but also said that “he’s filling a leadership vacuum.”

“There is no leader of the Democratic Party right now,” Siegfried said. “When you ask who’s the leader of the Democratic Party, he’s probably the person most people think of first.”

Borelli likewise said there’s “an honest question about who’s the most prominent Democrat in the country and it’s not any Democrat in office, and that’s the sad truth.”

While mocking Democrats for needing “to resurrect a president out of office for 12 years to be competitive in seats they should be winning in a presidential midterm,” Borelli said there was no way Obama wouldn’t return to the stump.

“He’s too vital to Democratic efforts,” he said.

Others agreed, with Siegfried saying, “Let’s say Obama doesn’t go out and campaign and stays home. If that were to happen and Democrats don’t take back the House, it’ll become a blame game.”

“I don’t think Obama wants anybody to turn around and say: You didn’t try your hardest,” he said.

Reinish likewise said that “given the extraordinary stakes of the midterm elections, something tells me he’s not going to stay home simply because that’s her preference.”

He was also hopeful that Michelle Obama would hit the campaign trail, saying that “her speech at the last convention was amazing.”

“If she were sitting in front of me, I would say, ‘Please just hold your nose and do it. We need you,’” he said.

But November’s elections are likely to prove a turning point, Lee said, suggesting that Obama’s recent remarks were aimed at “sending a message to the Democrats that, look, no matter who is in charge of this party after 2028, we all have a responsibility to stand together or it’s going to end up far worse in the future.”

“When the presidential race comes around, he will likely step back and let Democrats figure it out, and when the nominee is chosen, he will be helpful, he will endorse and he will do what he has to do but he won’t be as out front as he is now because he knows when to pass the torch,” Lee said.