Obama Divorce Story: New Book Claims Michelle Nearly Left Barack in 2000
The controversial new biography of President Barack Obama claims that his wife, Michelle Obama, planned to leave the future president in 2000.
Is the divorce story real? Is anything in the book?
The unauthorized biography, which Klein claims is based on nearly 200 interviews, has been dismissed by presidential spokesperson Eric Schultz.
“Ed Klein has a proven history of reckless fabrication in order to sell books,” he said. “Nobody in their right mind would believe the nonsense in this one.”
Nevertheless, the Obama divorce story is the latest revelation in the book – which also discusses his ex Genevieve Cook – to generate major buzz.
In The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House, out this week, Klein claims the divorce nearly happened eight years into the Obamas’ marriage.
After Obama failed to listen to his wife’s warnings in challenging Bobby Rush for his U.S. House seat in 2000 and got creamed, their relationship cooled.
“During the dark days that followed his defeat, he turned to Michelle for comfort. But she was in no mood for sympathy,” Klein reportedly writes.
“He had refused to listen to her warnings about taking on Rush.”
The primary left them in debt and Barack depressed, Klein claims. “Michelle actually had divorce papers drawn up,” he writes, citing one of her friends.
“Obama was so depressed that some of his friends worried that he was suicidal,” the book adds, without elaboration on that particular point.
Obama, of course, was still in the Illinois State Senate, and went on to win a U.S. Senate seat in 2004 that helped establish his national credentials.
But Michelle almost vetoed the Senate race, too.
Northwestern University professor Steven Rogers told Klein that Obama talked about his ambition after they met at a golf fund-raiser.
“My wife will not allow me to run for the Senate until I clear up the debts from my unsuccessful run for Congress,” Obama said, according to Rogers.
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