--- title: Barack Obama Tells Letterman About Taking Malia to College description: Barack Obama used his time as the first guest on David Letterman's 'My Next Guest Needs No Introduction,' to talk about his daughter. canonical: https://time.com/5099991/barack-obama-talks-taking-daughter-malia-to-college-david-letterman/ author: Cady Lang article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-01-12T08:01:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:49:43.576Z og:title: Obama Talks About Raising His Daughters With David Letterman og:description: Peak dad mode og:url: https://time.com/5099991/barack-obama-talks-taking-daughter-malia-to-college-david-letterman/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb8d52003e572fc05/6988f810096a94ce8f6a113a/barck-obama-malia-college-david-letterman-my-next-guest-needs-no-introduction.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2000 og:image:height: 1125 og:image:alt: US-POLITICS-OBAMA og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Obama Talks About Raising His Daughters With David Letterman twitter:description: Peak dad mode twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb8d52003e572fc05/6988f810096a94ce8f6a113a/barck-obama-malia-college-david-letterman-my-next-guest-needs-no-introduction.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Even Barack Obama Had a Hard Time With DIY Furniture When He Moved His Daughter at College > Sponsored content. 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Obama is heading to Los Angeles to attend fundraisers. / AFP / MANDEL NGAN (Photo credit should read MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images) US President Barack Obama and daughter Malia make their way to board Air Force One before departing from Chicago OHare International Airport in Chicago on April 7, 2016\. Obama is heading to Los Angeles to attend fundraisers. / AFP / MANDEL NGAN (Photo credit should read MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images) MANDEL NGAN—AFP/Getty Images  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Jan 12, 2018 8:01 AM UTC [Barack Obama](http://time.com/barack-obama-joe-biden-friendship-photos/) may be the former [leader of the free world](http://time.com/obama-and-copeland/), but that doesn’t mean that he’s above [the challenges that every parent experiences](http://time.com/5098712/barack-obama-dancing-dad-moves-david-letterman/) and that includes the struggles that come with sending [a child off to college](http://time.com/5036859/malia-obama-smoking-ivanka-trump-chelsea-clinton/). As the inaugural guest on David Letterman’s new, six-episode [Netflix series, _My Next Guest Needs No Introduction_](http://time.com/5090142/barack-obama-david-letterman-new-talk-show/), the [Dad-in-chief](http://time.com/4621362/barack-obama-best-dad-moments/) divulged that, like most people, he sometimes has issues when it comes to assemble-yourself furniture. According to Obama, when he and the rest of the family moved in his daughter Malia into her new college digs (she’s currently a freshman at Harvard,) he was feeling pretty emotional about firstborn moving out, so Malia suggested that he help her put together a lamp that she had gotten for her desk. While the lamp initially appeared to be easy to put together, Obama ran into some challenges assembling it. “I was basically useless. Everyone had seen me crying and misting up for basically the previous three weeks, so Malia, who’s very thoughtful, she goes, ‘Dad, you know, I’ve got this lamp in this box, could you put the desk lamp together?’ I said, ‘Sure.’ It should have taken five minutes or three minutes and it had one of those little tools. It only had like four parts and I’m just sitting there, toiling at this thing for half an hour and meanwhile, Michelle has finished scrubbing and she’s organizing closets and I was just pretty pathetic.” While Obama noted that dropping off Malia at college was like having “open-heart surgery,” he also divulged that it’s been easier because of technology since the two text on an almost daily basis, with Malia checking in on him and sending him lots of heart emojis. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5099991/barack-obama-talks-taking-daughter-malia-to-college-david-letterman/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5099991/barack-obama-talks-taking-daughter-malia-to-college-david-letterman/"},"headline":"Even Barack Obama Had a Hard Time With DIY Furniture When He Moved His Daughter at College","datePublished":"2018-01-12T08:01:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:49:43.576Z","description":"Peak dad mode","url":"https://time.com/5099991/barack-obama-talks-taking-daughter-malia-to-college-david-letterman/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Barack Obama","Netflix","celebrities","viral","David Letterman"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb8d52003e572fc05/6988f810096a94ce8f6a113a/barck-obama-malia-college-david-letterman-my-next-guest-needs-no-introduction.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Cady Lang","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/cady-lang/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb8d52003e572fc05/6988f810096a94ce8f6a113a/barck-obama-malia-college-david-letterman-my-next-guest-needs-no-introduction.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"US-POLITICS-OBAMA","caption":"US-POLITICS-OBAMA","creditText":"MANDEL NGAN—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5099991/barack-obama-talks-taking-daughter-malia-to-college-david-letterman/","name":"Even Barack Obama Had a Hard Time With DIY Furniture When He Moved His Daughter at College"}}]}] ```