Former first lady Michelle Obama has long been the subject of speculation about her political ambitions, but the way former President Barack Obama describes it, there's no way she would ever run for a political office, or let him run for one again.
But that's exactly what Donald Trump thought would happen in November of 2020.
Michael Wolff's new book, Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump White House, revealed that the former president genuinely thought that that the Democratic Party would replace Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on the ticket at the last minute. He believed that the DNC would swap out Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Michelle Obama as the new candidates.
According to Wolff, Trump heard the theory from Fox News host Sean Hannity, who was advising the Trump campaign while also hosting his show for the network. It's unclear where Hannity got the idea or if he invented it himself, but he believed that former President Barack Obama had orchestrated the plan.
Cuomo had already announced early on that he would never accept a VP slot and refused to run for president during the COVID-19 crisis.
There's also a significant legal barrier to a plan like that. Most states have laws on the books that mandate candidates' names and filings be submitted anywhere from 60 to 90 days from the election. A "last-minute" change would likely be impossible for all 50 states, five populated territories and non-state Washington, D.C.
Read some of the other shocking pieces from the Michael Wolff book here.
