STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
We have an interview this morning with Michelle Obama. She talked with our colleague Rachel Martin, former co-host of this program who now hosts Wild Card. She asks her guests deep questions about their lives, which they choose from a deck of cards. And Michelle Obama was her most recent guest. Hi there, Rachel.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Hi, Steve.
INSKEEP: It's so great to see you again. So what did you learn about this super, super famous person?
MARTIN: That she very much wants to be in control of her life in a way that she just wasn't able to be when she was first lady, when she was in the White House. And that means getting to say no to things. I mean, you'll remember, she did not go to President Trump's inauguration this year. She did not go to President Jimmy Carter's funeral. She's saying what she wants to say, how she wants to say it, especially on this new podcast she's got with her brother. It's called "IMO." And part of being able to be herself in this new way is setting the record straight when certain rumors start flying about her marriage.
INSKEEP: Oh, yeah.
MARTIN: Which they did.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
MICHELLE OBAMA: The fact that people don't see me going out on a date with my husband sparks rumors of the end of our marriage. So that is...
MARTIN: It's like the apocalypse.
OBAMA: It's the apocalypse.
MARTIN: (Laughter).
OBAMA: It's like, OK, so we don't Instagram every minute of our lives. We are 60.
MARTIN: (Laughter).
OBAMA: We're 60, y'all.
INSKEEP: OK. So she's doing what she wants to do. I know you asked her a bunch of questions, drawing off these cards. Could we hear one of the answers, please?
MARTIN: Yes. Here's her answer to the question she drew from our deck. Has ambition ever led you astray?
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
OBAMA: Wow. I don't know if my ambition has ever fully been able to actualize itself
MARTIN: Yeah.
OBAMA: Because of the nature of what me and my husband have done. I mean, you know, I guess you could...
MARTIN: As a team.
OBAMA: As a team.
MARTIN: Right.
OBAMA: You know...
MARTIN: It wasn't about your individual ambition.
OBAMA: Right. It was the team ambition. And I went along, arguably, kicking and screaming, right? And as a working mother, you know, I think all of that stuff kind of cut my ambitions short a little bit.
MARTIN: Yeah.
OBAMA: Because I had to make a set of decisions. OK, my husband's over here. I've got these kids over here. I don't know if I can afford to be ambitious right now.
MARTIN: Right.
OBAMA: So I think I kind of squelched my ambition. But now is a time for me to embrace my own ambition and to define it for me. So maybe the answer is, we'll see (laughter).
MARTIN: Yeah.
OBAMA: Because I think I'm just now stepping, fully stepping, into my own ambition.
MARTIN: Yeah. Part of ambition and living your own life is saying yes to things you want to do. It's also saying no, I imagine, to things that you don't want to do.
OBAMA: For sure.
MARTIN: Yeah.
OBAMA: And we experienced that. One of the major decisions I made this year, to stay put and not attend funerals and inaugurations and all the things that I'm supposed to, that was a part of me, you know, using my ambition to say, let me define what I want to do...
MARTIN: Yeah. Yeah.
OBAMA: ...Apart from what I'm supposed to do, what the world expects of me. And I have to own that. Those are my choices. Whatever the backlash was, I had to sit in it and own it.
MARTIN: Yeah.
OBAMA: But I didn't regret it (laughter), you know? But we'll see. Maybe next year, we sit down - I go, you know, Rachel (laughter), went a little too far.
(LAUGHTER)
INSKEEP: Our own Rachel Martin speaking with former first lady Michelle Obama. Rachel, where can people go if they want to hear some more?
MARTIN: Yeah, you can listen to a longer version of that conversation if you search for Wild Card with Rachel Martin in your podcast app. And you can even watch a video of that entire episode on YouTube or Spotify.
INSKEEP: Rachel, thanks so much.
MARTIN: Thank you, Steve.
INSKEEP: NPR's Rachel Martin.
(SOUNDBITE OF DJ SHADOW AND NILS FRAHM'S "SCARS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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