Michelle Obama says the U.S. still isn’t ready to elect a female president. Now, weeks later, Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., is publicly agreeing.
He weighed in Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” saying the former First Lady “is absolutely correct.”
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‘Sadly, we ain’t ready’
Obama made her remarks in November during a conversation with actor Tracee Ellis Ross at an event in New York, where she again dismissed calls for her to run for president.
“As we saw in this past election, sadly we ain’t ready,” she said, pointing to Kamala Harris’s 2024 loss to Donald Trump. “That’s why I’m like, ‘Don’t even look at me about running because you all are lying. You’re not ready for a woman. You are not.’”
Obama said the U.S. still has “a lot of growing up to do,” especially among men who, in her view, don’t yet believe they can be led by a woman.
Clyburn: She’s ‘absolutely correct,’ but don’t stop running
On Sunday, NBC’s “Meet the Press” asked Clyburn about Obama’s remarks and about Harris’s contention in her new book that racism and sexism played a role in her defeat.
“Michelle Obama is absolutely correct,” Clyburn said. “If you look at the history, we demonstrated that we are not ready.” He pointed to past bids by Hillary Clinton and Harris as evidence that “incredible women” have stepped up, and lost, at the presidential level.
Still, Clyburn pushed back against the idea that women should wait their turn. He said he wants more women to run and pledged to support them.
“Just because it doesn’t seem that we are ready doesn’t mean we should stop the pursuit,” he said. “And so we may be in a dark moment as it relates to women serving as president, but we may be in that moment just before dawn when a woman will serve.”
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Power, prejudice and the rules of the game
Clyburn’s comments came as he was also warning about a different barrier to political power: voting rules.
He told “Meet the Press” he’s worried the Supreme Court could gut a key part of the Voting Rights Act by limiting how states consider race when drawing congressional maps. It’s a shift he fears could echo the rollback of Black political representation after reconstruction.
