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The Democratic Party didn’t name Michelle Obama its 2024 nominee
So far, there are three Democratic candidates for the 2024 presidential election. They are incumbent President Joe Biden, author, self-help guru and 2020 candidate Marianne Williamson and environmental lawyer and anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
But a recent Instagram post suggests that a fourth candidate has already been anointed as the Democratic party’s nominee: former first lady Michelle Obama.
"TWJ Founder: The Democratic Party just confirmed Michelle Obama will be its nominee and nobody noticed," read a picture of a Western Journal headline shared in the May 4 post. (TWJ is an abbreviation for conservative news site, The Western Journal.)
The post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)
We found the May 3 Western Journal article — labeled as a "commentary," as opposed to a news story — and it confirms nothing.
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Rather, the article says that The Western Journal’s founder, Floyd Brown, recently appeared on Newsmax and said; "I think Michelle Obama is going to be the Democratic nominee."
"When they moved the convention to Chicago, that was their tell," the article says he added, "because they moved it to her hometown."
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In April, the Democratic National Committee announced that Chicago will host the 2024 National Convention in August of that year. Obama grew up in Chicago. But that hardly amounts to the Democratic National Party confirming she will be the party’s presidential nominee, as the headline claims.
Some fans of the former first lady have wished she would run. Democratic political consultant Douglas Schoen wrote in a column for the Orange County Register that "should Biden step aside, there is only one Democrat that the Republican Party would truly, and with good reason, fear in 2024: Michelle Obama."
But Obama has not signaled she will run for president, and the Democratic Party hasn’t confirmed she will be the Democratic presidential nominee.
We rate this post False.
Our Sources
Instagram post, May 4, 2023
The Western Journal, TWJ Founder: The Democratic Party Just Confirmed Michelle Obama Will Be Its Nominee and Nobody Noticed, May 3, 2023
Boston Globe, For (probably not) the last time: Michelle Obama isn’t running for president, March 5, 2023
Barack Obama presidential library, First Lady Michelle Obama, visited May 8, 2023
Democratic National Committee, DNC Announces Chicago to Host 2024 Democratic National Convention, April 11, 2023
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The Democratic Party didn’t name Michelle Obama its 2024 nominee
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