“She’s brilliant. She knows the way around. She is a really fine woman," Biden said this week of the former first lady

Joe Biden Says Michelle Obama Isn’t Interested in Being VP but He’d Pick Her ‘in a Heartbeat’

There won’t be an Obama-Biden reunion on the 2020 presidential ticket, even if former Vice President Joe Biden wished otherwise.

Biden told Pittsburgh TV station KDKA on Monday that, while former First Lady Michelle Obama has made it clear she’s not interested in running for office, he would pick her as his running mate “in a heartbeat.”

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“She’s brilliant. She knows the way around. She is a really fine woman,” the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee to face President Donald Trump told KDKA. “The Obamas are great friends.”

Biden, 77, served as vice president for both terms of President Barack Obama‘s administration.

He has vowed to pick a woman as his running mate and potential vice president in 2020, and a number of women in the Democratic Party have raised their hands to volunteer for the job.

Last week, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris said they would accept the position if Biden asked them. Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams also threw her hat in the ring, telling Elle she’d be “an excellent running mate.”

Ms. Obama, now 56, shot down the idea of running for president while answering questions from kids in late 2016.

“We’re out,” she said.

That hasn’t changed. She wrote in her 2018 memoir, Becoming: “I have no intention of running for office, ever. … I do believe that at its best, politics can be a means for positive change, but this arena is just not for me.”

Biden said Monday: “I don’t think she has any desire to live near the White House again.”

Image zoom From left: former Vice President Joe Biden and former First Lady Michelle Obama in 2014 Ron Sachs-Pool/Getty

Earlier this year, Mrs. Obama told Oprah Winfrey that the White House brought her self-doubt and that she found it difficult to read how others felt about her while she was the first lady.

“It’s like I lived in the cocoon of the White House for eight years,” she said then.

But she hasn’t left activism behind. While she focused on children’s health and physical activity while first lady, she has since worked on girls’ education worldwide and voting rights.

On Monday, Mrs. Obama joined Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson in campaigning for broader mail-in voting capabilities, and she has criticized its lack of use in some states while people had to vote in person in the midst of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

“Voting should never, ever be difficult and it should never be a partisan issue,” she said during Monday night’s virtual When We All Vote #CouchParty with Hanks and Wilson.

“This pandemic, this crisis that we’re facing is proving that measures like vote by mail, early, in-person voting and online voter registration are not only long overdue, they are essential for the future of this democracy,” she added.

Last week, 58-year-old President Obama endorsed Biden in the 2020 election.

“Choosing Joe to be my vice president was one of the best decisions I ever made,” he said in a video. “And [Biden] became a close friend. And I believe Joe has all the qualities we need in a president right now.”