Remember last week when Barack Obama told an audience in London that he was finally getting out the hole he found himself in with his wife after their eight years in the White House? Well, it appears he spoke too soon.
The latest episode of Michelle Obama’s podcast with her brother Craig Robinson dropped Wednesday, and it features the former first lady talking to a couples therapist about how she has nothing to talk to her husband about. Oh, and she really doesn’t like the way he chews either.
On Wednesday’s show, Megyn was joined by Glenn Greenwald, host of Rumble’s System Update, to discuss but the latest awkward revelations about the Obamas’ marriage.
Don’t Speak
Michelle has not been shy about airing her grievances and dirty laundry on her IMO (a.k.a. in my opinion) podcast. Over the last several months, we’ve learned that her marriage had a “bad decade,” she didn’t enjoy her time in the White House, she was skeptical of her husband’s political ambitions, and raising her daughters was not a fulfilling experience (to name a few).
And now we’re getting some additional insight into the couple’s current dynamic. Dr. Orna Guralnik, a well-known psychoanalyst and couples therapist, joined Michelle and Robinson in their latest episode to talk about “reframing what to look for in successful relationships.”
When the conversation turned to how to “stay curious” and “go deeper” with your partner, Robinson shared that he and his wife have two children in their early teens. He said they “don’t just talk about the kids” but rather “talk about a lot of different things.” Even so, he admitted to wanting to continue to challenge himself to open up more to his wife.
That’s when Michelle jumped in. “You’re still in kid mode. Barack and I are empty nesters, right? So the funny thing is… now we don’t have the kids… to talk about… on a day-to-day basis,” she said. “And we’ve noticed how much of our time we spent talking about them.”
She suggested they often find themselves with nothing to say. “So, now that we’re empty nesters, it’s like, well, what are we going to talk about,” Michelle continued. “We’re together all day, so we do this thing where it’s like I’ll see him and it’s like, ‘What you been doing?’ It’s like, ‘Oh, don’t tell me until dinner because we’re we got to have something to talk about at dinner.'”
“So, if all throughout the course of the day I’m getting caught up on his stuff, then it’s like we’re sitting staring at each other,” she added.
Chew on This
While Guralnik suggested there is nothing wrong with sitting in silence because there is a way to do so “that is very alive,” she said it comes down to intention. “It’s a question of… are you sitting there in a place that you know what matters to you in that moment? And are you curious about your partner’s edge, or where they’re at? What are you thinking about,” she said.
Michelle used that as an opening to share one of her biggest pet peeves about her husband. “And then, do you really say? Because how many times does somebody ask what are you thinking about, and you’re like, ‘Well, let me make up a thing ‘cuz I don’t want to actually say what I was thinking about right now,’” she said. “Which was like, ‘The way you’re chewing makes me want to smack you upside the head.'”
She went on to claim that her daughters, Sasha and Malia, are also “very irritated with the way Barack chews” and wondered if that “is a statement of something deeper.”
‘She Can’t Stand Him’
In Megyn’s view, the statement is clear: “She cannot stand him.”
Greenwald joked that the only time he ever hears from the former first lady is when Megyn subjects him to listening to clips, and he listens “with my mouth agape” because it is not just about “the level of contempt and hatred that she harbors for him” but also the fact that she “feels a strong need to let everybody know” it.
“It is not enough for her to just silently hate him. She wants to publicly talk about it,” he noted. “They have nothing to talk about unless they save it until dinner? He smacks his gums? She is stewing all day? I mean, this is real contempt and hatred in a marriage.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Greenwald by tuning in to episode 1,161 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.