From left: Sasha Obama and Maisy Biden.Photo: Rich Lam/Getty
Barack Obamasays thatJoe Biden’s granddaughterMaisy Bidenis still one of his daughterSasha Obama’s best friends after their shared childhoods in Washington, D.C.
Obama, 59, and Biden, 78, have spoken in the past about how the two 20-year-olds grew up together during their families' time in the White House from 2009 to 2017.
On thelatest episodeofDax Shepard’sArmchair Expertpodcast, Obama said that Maisy and Sasha are still close, laughing as he shared memories of coaching their fourth-grade recreational league basketball team, The Vipers.
“Maisy was like the LeBron of the league,” Obama told Shepard, 46, and Monica Padman. “She dominated. She was great, you know, and we went undefeated. The Vipers ruled.”
The Vipers went on to a championship that year, but the former president’s coaching tenure didn’t end as well. Obama wrote in his memoirA Promised Landthat he was forced to quit the team after parents of players on the other teams complained he somehow provided an advantage.
Obama wrote that he and Love, a 40-year-old former college basketball player, had “celebrated like it was the NCAA finals” when The Vipers pulled out a dramatic 18-16 “nail biter” in the championship game.
President Barack Obama plays basketball during the annual Easter Egg Roll on the White House tennis court April 1, 2013 in Washington, DC.Mark Wilson/Getty Images
Sasha and Maisy’s basketball team came up on Shepard’s podcast after the actor had asked Obama about a video that went viral during the 2020 campaign in which the former president sunk a three-pointer in front of future-President Biden and then walked out of the gym yelling out, “That’s what I do! That’s what I do!”
“The best part of that shot was, if you go back and look at the video there’s a young woman in a mask who’s under the basket and she’s the one who gave me the pass: That is Joe Biden’s granddaughter Maisy Biden, who was one of Sasha’s best friends and still is growing up,” Obama said. “They went to the same school.”
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Obama laughed on the podcast that Maisy being the one to pass him the ball made things come “full circle” in their coach-to-player relationship.
“Part of the reason Joe didn’t mind was because his granddaughter, she got the assist,” Obama joked. “She dropped the dime, man. It was right there. All I had to do was just finish.”
When Shepard asked Obama if the viral three-pointer was “the greatest moment” of his whole life, Obama quickly quipped that it was “not a unique moment” for him.
“I hit the big shots,” he said. “That’s what I do.”
source: people.com
