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Michelle Obama said sending her daughters to sleepovers meant warning their friends' parents: 'There is going to be a man with a gun sitting outside all night'

Jul 8, 2019, 16:39 IST

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Petar Kujundzic/Reuters

  • Michelle Obama spoke about how hard it was to send her daughters to friends' houses given the extra security precautions that needed to be in place, from special agents to house sweeps.
  • "Imagine having Malia and Sasha come to your house for a sleepover. This is the call. It's like, 'Hello. OK. We're going to need your Social Security number. We're going to need your date of birth'," she said.
  • She said that it would involve telling other parents: "Oh and by the way, there is going to be a man with a gun sitting outside all night. If you let him use the bathroom, that would be nice."
  • Malia and Sasha were nine and six respectively when their father was elected in 2008, and they spent eight years living in the White House.
  • Read more stories like this on Business Insider.

Michelle Obama revealed the struggle of the extra security needed to send her high-profile daughters to their friends' houses during her husband's presidency, including warning other parents of background checks and house sweeps.

Obama told CBS News' Gayle King at Essence Festival on Saturday that she had to warn other families of the extra precautions before Malia and Sasha came over.

"Imagine having Malia and Sasha come to your house for a sleepover. This is the call. It's like, 'Hello. OK. We're going to need your Social Security number. We're going to need your date of birth'," she said.

"There are going to be men coming to sweep your house, if you have guns and drugs, just tell them yes because they are going to find them anyway."

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"Don't lie, they're not going to take them, they just need to know where they are."

President-Elect Barack Obama is sworn in as the 44th President of the United States in 2009 as Michelle Obama and their daughters Malia and Sasha look on.Ralf-Finn Hestoft/Corbis via Getty Images

Read more: Michelle Obama jokes that Barack wanted to seek a second term so he could keep their daughters under Secret Service guard in their teen years

"And, uh, thank you for having Malia and Sasha over. Oh and by the way, there is going to be a man with a gun sitting outside all night. If you let him use the bathroom, that would be nice."

Malia and Sasha were aged nine and six respectively when their dad, Barack Obama, was first elected as US president in 2008. They spent eight years living in the White House.

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Obama said that having the required security made their lives as teenagers less than typical.

"My kids had armed guards with them at all times," Obama said. "Imagine trying to have your first kiss" around "a bunch of men" with guns and ear pieces.

Read more: Here's a look back at Malia Obama's life in the White House and beyond

President Barack Obama, with daughters Sasha, left, and Malia, makes a joke during remarks at the Thanksgiving tradition of saving a turkey from the dinner table with a &quotpresidential pardon," at the White House on Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2013 in Washington.Associated Press/Evan Vucci

Obama joked last year that her husband sought a second term so that he could keep his daughters under Secret Service protection.

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"I've always said, as quiet as it's kept, the second term of the presidency was really fueled by Barack's desire to keep them with their agents into their teen years," she said on the "Tonight Show" in December. 

"He was like: 'We've got to win, because I don't want those girls walking around.' He wanted men with guns with them. He worked extra hard on those votes. He's like, 'Come on voters!'"

Obama also told King that her daughters cried when moving out of the White House on the day of Donald Trump's inauguration as Obama's successor in 2017.

"The truth is, on that day I was moving my children out of the only house they had really grown up in. I think that gets lost on people."

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