Michelle Obama ‘Doesn’t Want The Job’ Of VP, Valerie Jarrett Says

You hear the name every time someone brings up who presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden will pick as his running mate.

No, not Oprah! Michelle Obama.

In an interview with a CBS Pittsburgh affiliate on Monday, the host asked: “I’ve heard some speculation about Michelle Obama as Vice President,” said Delano, a comment that got an initial laugh from Biden. “If she said to you she’d be willing to be your running mate, would you ask her?”

“Oh, I’d take her in a heartbeat,” Biden said. “She’s brilliant. She knows the way around. She is a really fine woman. The Obamas are great friends.”

But Valerie Jarrett, one of former President Barack Obama’s top advisers and a longtime friend to the couple, shot that down on Monday.

“There just simply has never been a time when she’s expressed an interest in running for office,” Jarrett told The Hill. “She’s not demurring here. She’s not being hard to get. She doesn’t want the job.”

“Of course, he would take her. That’s not the question,” Jarrett said. “The question is, is this the way in which she wants to continue her life of service?”

“There is a difference between being a public servant and being a politician, and she has no interest in being a politician,” Jarrett said. “Her husband was interested in being both. She’s only interested in the service component.”

Biden has repeatedly pledged to pick a woman as his running mate if he wins the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

“If I’m elected president, my Cabinet, my administration will look like the country,” Biden said March 15 during a Democratic presidential debate. “I would pick a woman to be my vice president.”

Biden has given a few clues as to who he might pick. At the last Democratic debate in February, he said he would appoint the first black female Supreme Court justice, which might mean he is leaning toward picking a white woman as his vice president. Biden, 77, has also said his pick would have to be “capable of [being] president because I’m an old guy,” which might mean he’d skew younger with his veep pick.

The former vice president told supporters in a phone call last month that he will begin his search for a running mate “in a matter of weeks,” The New York Post reported. Biden also said he has spoken to former President Barack Obama about potential picks. Biden said he would choose from a group “in excess of six or seven people” and that the vetting process would begin “relatively soon.”

In his interview, Biden said, “I’ll commit that it’ll be a woman because I think it’s very important that the that my administration looked like the public, looked like the nation. I’ve committed there will be a woman of color on the Supreme Court.”