Dick Morris And Newsmax Keep Floating The (Discredited) Idea That Michelle Obama Will Run For President

Like WorldNetDaily, Newsmax has also floated the idea that Michelle Obama might run for president despite having repeatedly expressed absolutely no interest in doing so. We’ve already noted that Dick Morris floated the idea a year ago as a substitute for his even more implausible claim that Hillary Clinton will run in 2024, and Newsmax has kept that pot simmering ever since. Michael Katz touted one right-winger’s prediction in a Sept. 22 article:

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, this week made a bold prediction about President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign.

Put simply, Biden — taking heavy fire over his age,  his economic, immigration and foreign policies, and his alleged role in shady family business dealings — will drop out, replaced with former first lady Michelle Obama as Dems’ 2024 standard bearer.

“Here’s the scenario that I think is perhaps most likely and most dangerous,” Cruz said Monday on his “Verdict With Ted Cruz” podcast. “In August of 2024 [at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago], the Democrat kingmakers jettison Joe Biden and parachute in Michelle Obama.”

[…]

Obama has repeatedly said she has no desire to run for president, but Cruz said, “to parachute in in August of ’24, a couple of months before the [election], and suddenly wake up and be president, it’s not a bad gig at all.”

“Would she do it? I don’t know,” Cruz said. “I’ve met Michelle, but I don’t know her personally in any meaningful way. I don’t know if she would do it, but I do think Barack Obama is already running the Biden administration. I think he is already the puppet master behind this Biden White House. I don’t think Joe Biden is the decision-maker.

“So, when I see the media turning on Joe Biden right now, I think the odds of Michelle Obama parachuting in in August of 2024 have risen dramatically, and that ought to scare the hell out of anyone who is unhappy in the direction this country is going and doesn’t want us to go even crazier in an even worse direction.”

Morris returned in a Jan. 24 column that abandoned his Hillary-is-running theory to hype the idea that Michelle will run:

Only one person can possibly stop Donald Trump from winning a second term as president: former frist lady Michelle Obama.

With Biden hobbled in his pursuit of a second term, his scandals growing in every direction, the Democrats could bait and switch at the last minute.

They could let Biden rack up delegates in essentially uncontested primaries only to release them on the eve of the national convention to nominate Michelle Obama by acclamation.

In one move, all of Biden’s negatives become irrelevant and his seemingly mental slowness matters little.

The Democrats can change the game in an instant by moving from Biden to Michelle.

[…]

Popular and arguably strangely nonpolitical, she can run on her husband’s name and record. While her own comments indicate a real and even attractive ambivalence about running, she can win popular support by pretending that she is being drafted as the only one who can save American democracy by defeating the “bogeyman” — Donald J. Trump.

Morris then tried to increase the purported threat level:

Republicans and conservatives must prepare for the eventuality that it is Michelle, not Joe, who we will face in November.

We must not let her candidacy metastasize in secret only to be sprung on the American people at the last minute.

We cannot let her candidacy appear to be a heartfelt and self-effacing response to a perceived national threat of a Trump return.

Only by alerting people to the surprise that the Democrats may have up their sleeves can we blunt its impact.

Morris also ranted about black people in general and insisted that right-wing speculation about Michelle isn’t wasted:

Back then, the legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s advocacy of equality united the nation.

But, today, its replacement by “equity” (i.e. black preference) stirs passionate division.

The Woke revolution has so redefined our traditional assumptions about crime, that now a black Democratic candidate must take a position on no-bail policies that amount to a domestic form of catch-and-release.

The flood of illegal immigration under Biden has brought the sanctity of our borders to center stage as a political issue, making things even more difficult for a minority Democratic candidate.

So we can beat Michelle Obama, but we must not wait for her to come to us.

We can and must beat her to the punch by speculating about her possible candidacy in public right now.

However, Larry Bell tried to pour a little cold water on the rampant speculation of people like Morris in his Jan. 24 column:

So the latest desperate Hail Mary hope, although we heard it before in 2020 (along with Oprah): What about that secret upset switcheroo Dems allegedly might launch as their nominee at their national convention?

I’m referring of course to Michelle Obama.

Nope again, and I’ll offer just a few reasons why.

Bell insisted that the Obamas would not “want to trade their multiple laps of luxury celebrity lifestyles for a return to public scrutiny and accountability for domestic and foreign policy disasters that ensued during their previous White House residency and recommenced under Biden’s” and pushed the conspiracy theory that Barack Obama is the real president behind President Biden. Bell also referenced what he claimed was “Michelle’s Heavy Chicago Black Baggage” as well as the “Kamala Problem”: “Does anyone really believe that she will peacefully relinquish that matrix box-checking president-in-waiting race-gender entitlement with characteristic cackling laughter?” He also insisted there would be “Blowback From the Bernie Bunch”: “do you imagine that the liberal far left that currently dominates the Democratic Party and its empty suit leader wants to replace him with someone they can’t entirely manipulate?”

Bell concluded by asserting, “don’t expect any Michelle ’24 ‘secret weapon’ that won’t blow up in Democrats’ faces.” He might want to let Morris know about that.

UPDATE: In between all this, Sebastian Gorka asserted in a Jan. 31 Newsmax TV appearance that the narrative of Michelle being president is “just lunacy from the QAnon wing.” Newsmax didn’t see fit to clip that for its website.