First & Last Lady: President Obama Claims Black America Wants To “Keep” Michelle Obama

President Obama is making his media rounds as much as his beautiful other half, Michelle Obama. I know I’ve boasted about the FLOTUS chatting with our brother site, NewsOne in an intimate interview and Michelle also wrote NewsOne an exclusive Op-Ed, but it was radio personality and White House correspondent, April Ryan who’s got something to boast about.

Ryan scored a coveted interview with the President and during their 14 minute chat, she discussed urban and minority issues with President Obama. Check out some of the highlights from the interview, including President Obama’s typical “big ups” to his better half, Michelle.

On the state of Black America:

“We’ve got a long way to go, but we’ve certainly made progress from the time I came into office and we were seeing the worst crisis since The Great Depression. African American unemployment was at 16 percent, it’s not dropped to 13 percent. It’s still too high and I am going to spend all of my waking hours over the next four years, making sure that anybody in America, willing to work hard, can find a job. We know that these problems didn’t happen overnight. They’ve been building up for decades.”

On numbers slipping with women:

“April, I don’t know what you’re looking at because we’re doing very strong among women, across demographic groups. Women understand the stakes in this election as well as anybody. I stand for women controlling their own healthcare choices. Governor Romney wants to put those choices in the hands of politicians, most of whom are male. I support equal pay for equal work, Governor Romney says, ‘I’ll get back to you on that.’ I support making sure that in the healthcare bill that I passed, that women are able to get contraceptive care from their insurers and insurance companies aren’t charging women more than men for health insurance. Governor Romney wants to repeal the whole act. That’s the reason we have consistently led substantially among and we continue to. I suspect that on Election Day, everyone will see that we’ve outperformed Mr. Romney with women in a substantial way.

On why Black America should vote for him:

“Other than the fact that I know Black America wants to keep Michelle as First Lady, I spend everyday in this Oval Office, thinking about how to ensure America can continue to be a land of opportunity for everybody. My track record in the last four years in preventing a great depression, saving an auto industry, passing healthcare reform that’s going to provide millions of people health insurance that didn’t have it before and protect them from insurance companies that are disadvantaging them, passing Wall Street reform so we don’t have taxpayer funded buy outs, also so we have a consumer advocate that prevent predatory lending and people being taken advantage of when it comes to mortgaging, or credit cards or pay day loans–all of which disproportionately effect the Black community…”

On his five-point plan:

“What I’ve done is put forward a very specific plan.

Number one, returning manufacturing to our shores by giving tax breaks to companies here instead of tax breaks to companies making profits and shipping jobs overseas.

Number two, I want to make sure we have the best education system in the world and through our race to the top and our expansion of student loans and grants, we have provided real guidance and direction on how we’re going to prepare our young people for the future. And make sure that African Americans who are working hard in school can afford to go to college.

Number three, we’ve got to make sure that we control our own energy. We’ve brought oil imports down significantly, doubling fuel efficiency standards on cars, we’re producing clean energy, wind and solar–all these things create jobs, save people money at the gas pump and help us grow economically.

Number four, I want to make sure we don’t reduce our deficit on the backs of middle class people and the poor. That means we have to ask the wealthiest people to pay a little bit more taxes.

Number five, we ended the war in Iraq, we’re winding down the war in Afghanistan, let’s take some of that money we’re not spending on war and put people back to work by rebuilding roads, bridges, schools and hospitals. Let’s train our young people to get those jobs.

If we move forward on the course that I’ve laid out, I’m confident the economy will grow faster and African American unemployment and unemployment across the board will go down. What we can’t do is go back to the misguided policies of Mr. Romney–which is basically a repeat of the policies of George Bush.”