Update to this story.
As someone who has struggled to quit smoking more times than I can count (now solidly on e-cigs) it wouldn’t hurt the White House to portray Obama as being human instead of this god-like persona they’ve created for him that nobody can relate to.
Via Politico:
White House press secretary Josh Earnest flatly denied on Wednesday that President Barack Obama was carrying a pack of cigarettes in a recent photograph of him with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi posted by the prime minister’s spokesman on Instagram.
The photo in question shows Renzi and Obama talking during the recent G-7 summit in Germany, and the president appears to be holding something in his right hand and reaching for something else with his left.
“There’s a lot of question about what this white thing is in his hand. Can you tell us — is the president, does he have a pack of cigarettes in his hand?” asked April Ryan, the White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks.
“He does not,” Earnest responded, seeking to quickly shift the briefing to other matters.
“I told you it’s not cigarettes. Let’s move on,” he said, following a brief back and forth.
Obama’s struggle to kick his smoking habit has been well documented. In 2011, first lady Michelle Obama said that her husband had quit puffing for good.
Obama was caught on a hot mic in 2013 telling a United Nations official that he hadn’t had a cigarette in “probably six years” because “I’m scared of my wife.”
More of the exchange at the White House briefing on Wednesday:
Ryan: “What was it?”
Earnest: “I don’t know, April, I wasn’t there, but …”
Ryan: “I understand, but I mean, did he tell you what it was?”