Barack Obama After the Presidency: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

Obama after presidency, Obama white house, Obama plans after presidency

Barack Obama leaving the White House for the last time. (Getty)

President Barack Obama will have a long post-presidency to plan, since he is only 55 years old. Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and their daughters, Malia and Sasha, will likely remain busy public figures while Donald Trump is in office. Part of Obama’s plans will include setting up his library in Chicago and seeing his daughters succeed in school

Here’s a look at Obama’s post-presidency plans and how you can continue to follow his work.


1. The Obama Family Will Head to Palm Beach for a Vacation After Trump’s Inauguration

Obama after presidency, Obama white house, Obama plans after presidency

Obama listening to Trump’s inaugural address. (Getty)

Before Obama settles into post-presidency life in Washington, D.C., Obama and his family will fly out to Palm Springs, California right after Trump’s inauguration. According to the Los Angeles Times, the Obama team isn’t giving details about their planned trip, or if both Sasha and Malia will be with them.

Obama won’t be the first president to go to Palm Springs after their term is over. After he resigned, Richard M. Nixon went to the Sunnylands estate. As the New York Times reported last year, Obama has used the estate in the past. He met with Chinese President Xi Jinping there.

“The president does genuinely love the desert, and I don’t think he expected that,” Geoffrey Cowan, the president of the Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands, told the Times. “He has found it a wonderful place to spend time and for world leaders to meet in a relaxed setting.”

As for what he’ll do on vacation, Obama told reporters that he might just write and spend time with his family.

“I want to do some writing,” he told the media. “I want to be quiet a little bit and not hear myself talk so darn much. I want to spend precious time with my girls.”


2. Unlike Most Presidents, Obama Plans on Staying In Washington so Sasha Can Finish High School

Obama after presidency, Obama white house, Obama plans after presidency

Obama leaves the inauguration. (Getty)

Sahsa Obama was famously at school while Obama delivered his farewell address. She is still attending Sidwell Friends and Obama has said in the past that he does not want to interrupt her studies by making her change schools.

Back in May 2016, Politico reported that the Obamas will lease a mansion owned by Joe Lockhart and Giovanna Gray while living in D.C. The Kalorama mansion is 8,200-square-feet and has nine bedrooms and 8.5 bathrooms.

Lockhart is the NFL executive vice president of communications, while Gray works for Glamour Magazine.

As for Malia, The Associated Press reported in May 2016 that she is focusing on becoming a filmmaker after internships on HBO’s Girls and CBS’ Extant. The Hollywood Reporter confirmed that she will intern for producer Harvey Weinstein during her gap year, before she starts at Harvard in 2017.


3. Barack & Michelle Obama Launched the Obama Foundation, Which Will be Based in Chicago

On the day of Trump’s inauguration, the Obamas released the above two-minute video, outlining their biggest plan for the future: building the Barack Obama Center at the University of Chicago. To help raise funds for his presidential library, they launched The Obama Foundation.

Obama will now have to use a different Twitter account to keep in contact with citizens and give updates on his projects. He will now be exclusively using @BarackObama, while Michelle Obama will use @MichelleOBama. Both @POTUS and @FLOTUS will be used by Donald and Melania Trump, respectively now.

Obama’s @POTUS tweets won’t be gone forever though. You can still see them all at @POTUS44, an account maintained by the National Archives and Records Administration.


4. Obama Has No Plans to Run for Office After Leaving the White House ‘Anytime Soon’

Obama after presidency, Obama white house, Obama plans after presidency

Obama shakes Trump’s hand. (Getty)

During his final press conference, Obama was asked if he plans on running for office again. After all, there’s nothing in the Constitution stopping him from running for Senate or the House.

“I’m not going to be running for anything anytime soon,” Obama said.

Obama wouldn’t be the first president to return to Congress if he decided to. After serving a single term in office, John Quincy Adam won a seat in the U.S. House, representing Massachusetts. He served in the House up until his death in 1848.

After his time in the White House, William Howard Taft became the 10th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He’s the only president to serve in the Supreme Court.


5. Obama Said He Would Only Speak Out If the Situation ‘Merits’ His Voice

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Obama during his final press conference as President. (Getty)

Also in his final press conference, Obama said he hopes to stay out of the limelight for the most part. However, if he sees “our core values” at stake, he will speak up. For example, if people are disenfranchised or if there are attempts to silence the press, he will speak up. If Trump deports the children of illegal immigrants who grew up in the U.S., Obama plans to say something about it.

Obama told the media:

there’s difference between that normal functioning of politics and certain issues or certain moments where I think our core values may be at stake. I put in that category, if I saw systematic discrimination being ratified in some fashion. I’d put in that category, explicit or functional obstacles to people being able to vote, to exercise their franchise. I’d put in that category, institutional efforts to silence dissent or the press.

And for me, at least, I would put in that category, efforts to round-up kids who have grown up here and for all practical purposes are American kids and send them someplace else when they love this country; they are our kids’ friends and their classmates, and are now entering into community colleges or, in some cases, serving in our military. The notion that we would just arbitrarily, or because of politics, punish those kids when they didn’t do anything wrong themselves I think would be something that would merit me speaking out. It doesn’t mean that I would get on the ballot anywhere.