Michelle Obama Presses the Panic Button On the 2024 Election: ‘I Am Terrified About What Could Possibly Happen’

Michelle Obama appeared on Jay Shetty’s On Purpose podcast where she admitted that she was “terrified about what could possibly happen” in the election year ahead.

Shetty asked the former First Lady, “What keeps you up at night?”

“What keeps me up are the things that I know: The war in the region, in too many regions. What is AI going to do for us? The environment, you know, are we moving at all fast enough?” she began, continuing:

What are we doing about education? Are people going to vote? And, why aren’t people voting? Are we too stuck to our phones? I mean, these are the things that keep me up, because you don’t have control over them, and you wonder, where are people, where are we in this, where are our hearts? What’s going to happen in this next election?

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 it for granted. You know, 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. And sometimes, I worry that we do. Those are the things that keep me up.

The former First Lady’s fears for the future come on the heels of a Wall Street Journal report saying former President Barack Obama was “worried” about Joe Biden’s poll numbers and Donald Trump’s threat to democracy.

President Biden gave his first campaign speech Friday where he lit into his presumed GOP rival Donald Trump, denouncing his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection and calling him a “loser.”

Watch the clip above via Jay Shetty’s On Purpose podcast.