(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) As rumors of tensions between the Obama and Biden families proliferate, former First Lady Michele Obama has so far refused to campaign for President Joe Biden as he seeks reelection, Axios reported Thursday.
According to insiders, Michele has avoided the Biden campaign because she upset with the family’s treatment of her friend, Kathleen Buhle, after Buhle’s messy divorce from Hunter Biden.
Michele and Buhle became friends during Michele’s time in the White House. In her 2022 memoir, The Light We Carry, she wrote that “my friend Kathleen and I keep regular morning dates to walk by the river.”
But comments made during the recent trial of Hunter Biden suggest that she has largely been blackballed by the family.
As a result, Michele’s relationship with the Biden family has gotten increasingly messy in the past several years, even as her husband, former President Barack Obama, continues to campaign for his former VP.
Michele pulled a similar stunt in 2020, avoiding participation in Biden’s campaign early on. Eventually, however, Democrat officials persuaded her that the stakes were too high, with former President Donald Trump posing a threat to the establishment class.
She eventually aided Biden with social media messages and via her non-profit, When We All Vote.
In order to try to quell speculation that tension is brewing again between the two families, Crystal Carson, a spokesperson for Michelle Obama, said that Michele supports Biden’s 2024 White House bid and denied rumors of conflict.
“She is friends with Kathleen and with the Bidens,” Carson told reporters. “Two things can be true.”
Further, White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said that the two establishment families are “like family to one other,” noting that “whomever made these claims about that relationship isn’t familiar with it.”
