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Obama Says he’ll ‘Sleep for Couple of Weeks,’ Michelle won’t Run for White House | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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U.S. President Barack Obama with his wife Michelle (AFP Photo/Molly Riley)


Washington- U.S. President Barack Obama has revealed some of his future plans after leaving the White House end of January.

“You know, I’m gonna sleep for a couple of weeks when I get out of here, take my wife on a well-deserved vacation. And I’ll spend time in my first year out of office writing a book,” Obama said in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine done the day after Donald Trump’s surprise win.

“I’m gonna be organizing my presidential center, which is gonna be focused on precisely this issue of how do we train and empower the next generation of leadership. How do we rethink our storytelling, the messaging and the use of technology and digital media, so that we can make a persuasive case across the country? And not just in San Francisco or Manhattan but everywhere, about why climate change matters or why issues of economic inequality have to be addressed. So I will continue to be very active,” he said.

“And Michelle is going to continue to be very active – and [on] the very thing that brought us here, which is our belief that when you work with people on the ground at a grassroots level, change happens,” he added.

Asked whether his wife would run for president, Obama said: “She is as talented a person as I know. You can see the incredible resonance she has with the American people. But I joke that she’s too sensible to want to be in politics.”

“What kind of private moments have you had that define your last eight years?,” he was asked.

Obama answered: “Oh, well, you know there have been well-known moments like me walking across the colonnade and hearing the chants of “USA” after we had gotten (Osama) bin Laden, or being up on the Truman Balcony with my young staff after we got the Affordable Care Act passed.”

He said he will miss the team he built at the White House.

Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday swept aside a challenge to her Democratic leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives by a congressman from a blue-collar district who warned the party has lost touch with working-class Americans.

Pelosi, 76, retained her post as minority leader after an anxious closed-door vote in which she survived a challenge from congressman Tim Ryan of Youngstown, Ohio to extend her 13-year grip on party control in the chamber.