President Obama Says Graduating Daughter Malia Is 'Very Eager' to Leave White House
Malia will graduate from high school on Friday.
— -- President Obama’s oldest daughter Malia is set to graduate from high school on Friday, and according to the president, she can’t wait to get out of the White House.
“I think Malia, who will be graduating this week, is very eager to get out of there,” the president said in an interview with NBC’s “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.”
The president hinted that he will be sentimental as he watches his eldest daughter, who was 10 years old when they first moved into the White House, graduate.
“I’ve got some sunglasses ... one more example of the president crying,” Obama told Fallon, who asked earlier in the interview whether the president is feeling sentimental about his second term drawing to a end.
“They’ve handled it so well,” Obama went on to say of both his daughters. “They are wonderful girls. They’re ... smart and funny, but most importantly they’re kind. They don’t have attitude.”
Malia plans to take a gap year before starting her undergraduate education at Harvard University in the fall of 2017.
While Malia will be the first to move out of the White House, the president isn’t far behind, with his residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue set to come to an official end on inauguration day 2017. But the president won’t be moving far from his current address, as the first family plans to remain in D.C. until his youngest daughter Sasha finishes out her high school career.
“The idea of her having to transfer schools, move to a new city, halfway through high school would not make me popular,” Obama said, joking that “it is a little depressing” that he will remain in city after his term is up and likening himself to the “old guy at the disco.”
The president also joked that he might find himself out of touch with technologies that he didn’t get to utilize as president.
“Pressing buttons on elevators I’m worried about,” he said. “I was this cool high-tech guy when I got there, right? I was the first president to have a BlackBerry, and so years passed and no one else has BlackBerries.”
Obama noted that while he now has a smartphone, he can’t use some of the basic functions -- like texting, taking photos or listening to music.
“So basically it’s like -- your 3-year-old have one of those play phones? It’s kind of like that,” he said.