Michelle Obama Reveals That Her Brother Convinced Her to Support Barack Obama’s “Crazy” Run

As it turns out, the world is still in its podcast episode: Former first lady Michelle Obama announced Monday that she’s getting into the streaming audio game and will co-host a new series with her brother, Craig Robinson. (Not Daryl from The Office; Obama’s older brother is the executive director of the National Association of Basketball Coaches.)

The show, IMO With Michelle Obama & Craig Robinson, is produced by Higher Ground, the media company founded by Obama and her husband, former president Barack Obama, and is set to premiere on Wednesday, March 12 with two episodes. On Thursday, the siblings will also take the stage at SXSW in Austin to record a live episode.

The debut episodes of the video podcast, which Vanity Fair has previewed, feature Obama and Robinson, dressed casually and clearly at ease with one another, chatting while seated at a table in a rental house. In the first episode, the former first lady and her older brother chat through their close lifelong bond, beginning with sharing a bedroom for years in their tiny childhood home in Chicago, through college, where they both attended Princeton, and adulthood. Listeners learn that Craig is who convinced Michelle to come around to the idea of Barack running for president in the first place. And he did it, in classic bittersweet sibling fashion, by mirroring life advice she’d once given him.

“[Barack] was smart enough to know that he needed to come to you and sell you on the idea,” Michelle recalls in the podcast’s first episode, revealing that her initial reaction to her husband floating a presidential run was, “We’ve done enough crazy stuff.”

Barack went to Craig, who listened, and then, to Michelle to discuss the matter.

“I convinced you to not penalize him for being really good at what he does,” Craig said of what changed Michelle’s mind.

That’s not the only marriage issue they discuss in the episode: Michelle reveals that she felt hurt when Craig avoided telling her, years ago, that he was getting divorced. (He is now remarried.)

They’ve continued to lean on one another through the years, with Michelle commenting, “I couldn’t have gotten through eight years in the White House without my big brother.”

Now, they want to share that supportive attitude with the world. The two are known among friends as good listeners and rational thinkers, they said, something they attribute to how they were raised by their parents. Sharing that kind of mentorship—and pass on the wisdom they’ve gained from their upbringing and experiences—with more people is at the heart of the podcast.

“We had people who would share their opinions, give us advice. We had mentors. We were used to mentoring and being mentored. A lot of people don’t have that,” Michelle said. “They don’t feel comfortable being vulnerable or asking hard questions.”

“A lot of people out there are looking for guidance.”

Though Michelle has disavowed rumors that she’ll follow in her husband’s footsteps and go into politics, she has spoken out against Donald Trump and urged Americans to not “normalize” his policies. She did not attend his inauguration ceremony, nor did she go to former president Jimmy Carter’s state funeral, where Barack was seen chatting genially with Trump. She doesn’t want a political platform, but a podcast? That’s a platform she can get behind.

“I can only access so many people through books or tours or at limited leadership conferences so I think this podcast first and foremost gives us an opportunity to hear from folks,” she said.

“People are looking for a place where they can just hear stories. They want to hear some kind of honest conversation about how people are working it through,” she continued. “We are not experts at anything but the lives that we live, but what we do have is a lot of opinions.”

“Hence the name: IMO,” Craig added, noting the acronym for “in my opinion.”

Michelle Obama is the latest high-profile female celebrity to launch a real-talk podcast poised to snatch the crown right off Joe Rogan’s conservative talking head, after Kylie Kelce unseated the MAGA-aligned host with the first episode of her show, Not Gonna Lie. Both shows emphasize clear-eyed, relatable real talk in conversation with a rotating roster of guests.

Each weekly episode will feature a different guest, beginning with Issa Rae, after an intro episode with solely Michelle and Craig. Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach, Seth Rogen, Jay Shetty, Tyler Perry, Elaine Welteroth, and Tracee Ellis Ross are among the guests teased for this season of the show.

“There is no single way to deal with the challenges we may be facing—whether it’s family, faith, or our personal relationships—but taking the time to open up and talk about these issues can provide hope,” Michelle said in a press release.