i was thinking about this earlier today
i had the uh great pleasure spending
some time
with your family with your mom and your
mom
is such a social person
and i mean immediately you cannot
there's no such thing as talking to your
mom for 30 seconds
you start talking to your mom and the
next thing you know 20 minutes have gone
by and it's been delightful
i can't is your mom making it through
this period without all that social
connection
you know what she can be social when she
has to but
she is perfectly content on her own i
mean the other day
i call her and i'm like how you doing
she's like
i'm surprisingly fine maybe something's
wrong with me but i'm perfectly happy
not seeing people she kind of questioned
it
but she's a little routine going on um
and she's been good i think she's been
doing some mild
safe social distancing with relatives
you know outside things like that so
it's kept
her focused so she is doing well thank
you
she is the i think the least affected
person
i've ever met uh by this historic change
that happened in her life
when i would when i talked to her she
was
just had this attitude like well i'm
here now living in the white house
because
that's what's going on now i mean it was
really
incredible and and she had no there was
no
sense that it changed her in any way oh
my god no
no i mean and she just played a pivotal
role
in keeping us all grounded she is just
not impressed
with anything um not much of anything
she the funniest thing is like when we
were in the white house and we'd do
these fabulous
you know international trips um and i
it was always like pulling teeth to get
her to go
you know i yeah we're going to china mom
and it's like
why would i want to go to china
[Laughter]
the great wall history you know part of
the
you know you want to go to the vatican
see the pope it's like i think
didn't i meet the pope once before why
would i want to go back
to rome then i've seen it it's like
you might want to see it again so it was
always a level of just sort of
telling you this is kind of a big deal
you might want to be a part of it but
the one thing that would always get her
to say yes
was if i said the girls really want you
to come
like oh oh okay well if the girls want
me to come then of course i'll come
for them right she's a trip she's
she's she's does she still i always get
the sense i got the sense from your book
and i also got the sense from hanging
around a little bit with your brother
uh craig that that he's the favorite and
you think
what do you have to do what do you have
to do
you are known throughout the world
you are an iconic figure and she's still
like yeah pretty good
but uh but craig you got to get greg
the the the apple of her eye i mean he's
my favorite too
um he's he's actually a very
sweet sweet brother to have but no
it's like she can get him he can get her
to do anything
even moving into the white house i wrote
i was like i couldn't convince her to
come so i had to call craig and tell her
craig you gotta make mom come to the
white house we need her
she's like of course grace thinks it's a
good idea
you know big brother mothers and their
sons you know
it's me she loves me deeply that i know
but i think we've all concluded that
even it's his
own wife his own kids they know well if
you want grandma to do something like
craig calling
well you used your brother too you you i
i heard you say that you you got your
brother to
sort of check out your uh
you know boyfriend at the time president
obama
uh and to see like what how is he on the
basketball court like analyze him for me
because you thought that that might tell
you something about his character
absolutely i mean we're we have always
been a big sports family
we you know my brother played tons of
sports played
you know i was all ivy and basketball
was a big part of our lives and my
father believed you could tell a lot
about a person by how they behaved on a
team
and i agreed with this so i thought you
know
i was dating him starting to get serious
i was introducing him to the family and
you know how people can
they show up well for your family but
right what do they do
when the stakes are really high what
happens on the court so
he took him out to play a pickup game
and
the the the reports were obviously good
because he stayed in my life
wasn't a bull hog um he said
he was good without being cocky
he wasn't afraid to pass the ball
um and he didn't do on the court what he
couldn't do like he didn't try to dunk
her
right that he clearly couldn't do so
all in all it was a good report and it
has wound up being
he's been pretty barack has been pretty
consistent
you know sure his character as we can
see
is our nation's leader yeah he's pretty
honest
shooter yeah i uh first of all i'm i'm
very glad he had a good
game that day
[Laughter]
god knows how history would be different
second it occurs to me that
if uh if my uh the the women in my life
had judged me
on my basketball prowess i would be a 57
year old virgin right now
so
with great height does not come great
coordination i hate to tell you
well you have other things tell me what
they are at some point
because i don't know here thank you
thank you we'll leave it at that smile
[Laughter]
wicked witch i mean yeah there we go
there we go thank you
basketball who needs that you're right i
don't need that