Speaking of putting women to work, Barack Obama says we’d all be better off putting women in charge of government… every government:
The former US president made the remarks during a wide-ranging conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin at Salem State University in Massachusetts on Monday, 21 September.
…’Even when I was president, I sometimes fantasised about, if you put women in charge of every government for like two years and then just kind of saw, all right, how are things going?’ Obama said.
‘I have a strong belief that things would — they wouldn’t be perfect,’ he added. ‘But they’d be better!’ Goodwin interjected. ‘But they’d be better. I’m confident about that. I really do,’ Obama replied [Terence Repelente, “Obama Says Governments Would Be ‘Better’ If Women Ran Them: ‘I’m Confident About That’,” International Business Times, 2026.09.25].
Obama expressed the same confidence in female leadership in Singapore in 2019:
“Now women, I just want you to know; you are not perfect, but what I can say pretty indisputably is that you’re better than us [men].
“I’m absolutely confident that for two years if every nation on earth was run by women, you would see a significant improvement across the board on just about everything… living standards and outcomes” [Saira Asher, “Barack Obama: Women Are Better Leaders Than Men,” BBC, 2019.12.16].
Donald Trump this morning said that the idea that women are good leaders “ridiculous“:
Q: Barack Obama just said ‘if you put women in charge of every government for two years, things would be better.’ Do you buy that?
TRUMP: It’s ridiculous. I love women. I think they’re great. But what a ridiculous statement that is.
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) September 26, 2026 at 10:15 AM
Perhaps the difference in how Obama and Trump view women’s leadership abilities has some relation to the quality of the women with whom each man has chosen to most closely associate.
I believe having more balance would be more likely to improve things. Not sure about women running everything, just like men running everything hasn’t worked well. Would it be better overall if they did? Perhaps, but I’d prefer balance.
My choice for Kamala Harris’ running mate was Gretchen Whitmer because Michigan was in play and Minnesota wasn’t. The Democratic Party of New Mexico is running two women at the top of the ticket this year.
Top Three States for Women in the State Legislature
1. NEVADA
2. NEW MEXICO
3. COLORADO
GO WEST, YOUNG WOMEN
And let’s not forget how well Kristi ran things wherever she was in charge. 😉
I’m with Ben, I like balance as well. Because I’m a team player, I want to hear other perspectives and that can only be accomplished through balance, not dominance. When I taught school, any male elementary teacher was a prize and highly respected by students, parents, and peers. Balance is good for all of them too as it reflects a community.
VM, that probably has influenced my perspective. I’ve worked with women almost my whole career, sometimes being the only male. Overall, it’s what I probably prefer. However, there have been a couple instances where my co-workers developed a disproportionate dislike for another co-worker and I helped calm things down. Same is true for male dominated fields: having at least a female or two can tone down the macho nonsense.
If women were in charge everywhere, things would be better for US but not better for Trump. There is no nation on earth where he would not be in prison.
We also learn tolerance, an asset Trump never learned in private school.
Yup. As a general rule women are better leaders in a democracy. Now if you want an oligarchy or a dictator, men fit the bill.
I’m a lifelong Republican. I know GOP-friendly groups are endorsing Mike Rounds and Marty Jackley right now.
I like Mike. I like Marty. Mike was a great governor of this state, all told, and Marty helped him a lot.
Mike, and others like Doug Burgum of ND, and many in the US House and Senate GOP majorities came from strong executive backgrounds, and all could be a capable, even an excellent historic President of the United States.
And ALL have sat silently by while President Trump has engaged in non-constitutional and patently illegal actions to enrich himself and his billionaire friends. To transfer wealth upward, to cause unending war to leverage stock prices, to break promises made to win the office, to cause pockets of worsening ruin around the country, to trash our standing among nations.
Worse, some like Burgum have descended to the most craven depth, giving their good reputation over to the stupidest lies from Trump, like the reflecting pool b.s.
Come on.
I say this as a 50-year registered Republican, I do not care what crony capitalist group endorses this gross miscarriage of justice, I will not endure any more of it. Any thinking Republican who does not vote Democrat to remove power from this current GOP leadership, is a betrayer to the country and his own family’s future.
Any thinking Republican who votes for the people giving Trump power, is dooming us all to be locked down in a high tech prison guarded by his loyal hothead ICE agents. He’s building it all around us.
I wish it was TDS. I wish it was just TDS that we could laugh at and ignore. But no. There’s too much at stake to ignore the evidence all around us.
Would Mike Rounds be a capable president? I suppose. At least the postal service would run smoothly. Clearly doesn’t have the leadership skills to be excellent and/or great. Burgum is also a tool.
Why all the love for Round’s Governor tenure? What greatness did I miss in those 8 years. Underfunding government services? Crony capitalism? What did I miss that was not just GOP business as usual?
I’m not saying the GOP of 20 years ago was a shining pinnacle of goodness and light. What I am saying is that 20 years ago, everyone stayed (mostly) inside the law to the benefit of all. Today’s rabble in the GOP grassroots aren’t Republicans in the classic sense, they’re a Fox-curated lynch mob, applauding Trump’s new empty promises while he robs us blind. Rounds well knows how effective governance for the good of the nation works, which makes his inaction under Trump truly infuriating.
Cardboard Mike would likely build a new white house in a tidal pool.
Affordability crisis? Not here…..https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/let-them-eat-cake-trumps-social-media-guru-gets-smoked-for-posting-tone-deaf-ai-clip-of-trump-cronies-popping-bubbly-while-riding-a-luggage-cart/
You could wish for Trump to become Transgender.
Balance is all good and fine, but when Trump dismisses Obama’s statement as ridiculous, he’s not calling for balance. He’s expressing his deep disrespect and objectification of women. He can’t believe that women in general are capable of leadership, because he believes they are mere objects for his pleasure, not autonomous intelligent beings with equal human dignity.
Bullshit. As a woman in a female dominated industry, women are hell to work with. They get their panties in a knot and when you ask then why they’re mad at you they say things like “well it wasn’t what you said, it was the way you said it.”
I first encountered this crap living in a women’s dorm .
Having grown up between two brothers and being vastly outnumbered by male cousins, I was unprepared for this.
I went into nursing as a profession because it was one of those jobs I could take anywhere. Nobody prepared me for the passive-aggressive backstabbing bullshit I encountered in every one of the 5 hospitals and 4 long term care facilities I worked in over the course of my career.
In 2025 South Dakota was 51st in the percentage of women-owned businesses. The best 20 states for women were all blue while the 20 worst states for women were all red. In 2024 South Dakota dropped to 49th in financial literacy and 50th in financial knowledge and education. The state was the 43rd best economy in the US, 51st in percentage of businesses owned by women and 50th in innovation potential.
Today, South Dakota is 36th in women’s equality behind even Mississippi, 35th in political empowerment and 30th in workplace environment, has dropped to 50th in financial literacy is 51st in financial knowledge and education rank, 41st in innovation, 45th in human capital rank, 47th in innovation environment and 50th in share of technology companies.
Cory, we all (or at least most of us here) are aware of what Trump meant. What wasn’t so clear is that Obama’s statement was naive and would be a textbook overcorrection.
TO Algebra: at the risk of being a mansplaining a-hole, I would delicately offer this: that your sheltered existence, growing up with little or no female contact, has left you equipped only for existence in a male-dominated society. Your broad-brush condemnation of females shows this.
I have many females in my family working in healthcare, and they are, across-the-board, all cool clinical professionals. I hope you have met or will meet persons of their caliber at some point.
I can’t wait for Ayn Rand and Margaret Thatcher types to take
over the world.
Margaret Thatcher would be far preferable to Leslee Unruh, Kristi Noem or Nancy Mace, for sure.
I find that when there are problems within the troops, it’s due to lack of good leadership. In most jobs, cooperation, collaboration, and dedication to the objectives are expected. Good leaders exemplify all of the above and hold everyone accountable, including themselves. Men and women are equally qualified if they have the aptitude. And I’m a firm believer in promotion from within, which is rarely done around here, especially in public school and medical facilities.
Ayn Rand and Margaret Thatcher were way too far right for me. Neither one had a heart and believed in maintaining the status quo. Although Rand wrote about her selfish individualism, Thatcher practiced it through legislation.
On Rounds: efforts to gum up the initiative process to make it unworkable occurred during his terms; paid off SDDS for failed large landfill, rather than keep fighting; the EB5 scandals; the GEAR Up scandal; Trump-lite self-dealing by SD Economic Development Board in startups in which Rounds and his campaign manager had invested
On Rand, Noem, Thatcher: check their genitalia, because they were closeted men
Tomorrow’s the day the Indians block your driveway, Lar, in the Kewa Land Back Grab. Are you lashing out because of it? grudznick abides.