President Obama complained during an interview Friday with Ryan Seacrest that he has been “unfairly maligned” for his jeans selection.
“I’ve been unfairly maligned about my jeans,” Obama told the radio host. “The truth is, generally, I look very sharp in jeans. There was one episode like four years ago in which I was wearing loose jeans, mainly because I was out on the pitchers mound and didn’t want to feel confined while I was pitching.”
{mosads}Earlier this month, former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin mocked Obama’s “mom jeans” while criticizing his handling of the Russian incursion into Crimea.
“People are looking at Putin as one who wrestles bears and drills for oil,” Palin told Fox News. “They look at our president as one who wears mom jeans and equivocates and bloviates.”
An employee at a Gap store that the president visited earlier this week in New York alluded to the criticism in a prior interview with Seacrest, but said she didn’t try to sell the president a new pair while he was in the store.
Obama said that his daughters were pleased with the sweaters he picked out during the outing, meant to promote his push to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour.
“They thought that for a dad, I displayed reasonably good taste,” Obama said. “The bar is fairly low, but I didn’t get too adventurous.”
Obama added that he had played it conservative by only looking at sweaters and T-shirts for his famously fashionable daughters.
“When you start getting into pants or shoes, then you’re doomed,” he quipped.