First lady Michelle Obama waves to the crowd after speaking during a campaign rally for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton Thursday, Oct. 20, in Phoenix. | AP Photo Axelrod: I'll bet everything that Michelle Obama won't seek public office

David Axelrod would bet the house that Hillary Clinton’s most potent surrogate will never seek public office, much to the chagrin of her supporters.

First lady Michelle Obama has repeatedly ripped Donald Trump’s character without ever mentioning him by name in a series of passionate, forceful speeches she has delivered while campaigning for Clinton. But Axelrod, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, said a politician just isn’t who the first lady is.


“People say to me all the time, ‘Well, do you think she might run for office sometime?’ I would bet everything that I own against that prospect,” he told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Friday. “She is not someone who loves politics at all. And I don’t think she’s really out there as a political figure now. She’s out there because she feels passionately about the choice here.”

Describing Michelle Obama as “a reluctant conscript to politics,” Axelrod said that while the first lady is “giving speeches that are very sort of value-laden and personal,” she’s a woman who had her own life and was committed to the couple’s children.

“And so there was this understanding between them before he ran for president that, you know, that was his career, she would be as supportive as she could, but she wasn’t really involved, you know,” he said. “She didn’t campaign terribly much for him in 2004 when he ran for the Senate, for example, a campaign that I was involved in. And that was just the understanding between them. But, you know, obviously, when you run for president, it’s a different deal so, you know, she became, you know, she gave up a lot to help him and assist him and then as first lady.”

But she will be glad to leave the White House and fade out of the public eye, Axelrod reckoned. “I honestly think she’s gonna be very happy to get her life back when this is over and recede a little bit from the public.”

Axelrod also name-dropped Sarah Hurwitz as the mastermind behind the first lady’s speeches. Hurwitz, he noted, crafted Clinton’s 2008 “glass ceiling” concession speech during the Democratic primary.

“Concession, by the way, Hugh, is what you do when the other person gets more votes than you,” he quipped, taking an obvious dig at Trump.