It fell to President Barack Obama to confirm gossip his aides had spent weeks trying to snuff out: He still sneaks an occasional cigarette.
“There are times where I mess up,” Obama said Tuesday.
But, the president hastened to add, he never smokes in front of his young daughters and not on a daily basis. Oh, and he’s “95 percent cured.”
It was the first public acknowledgment from the president that he hasn’t kicked the habit.
One day after signing the nation’s toughest anti-tobacco legislation into law, Obama was asked about his smoking habit and came clean.
“Look, I’ve said before that as a former smoker, I constantly struggle with it. Have I fallen off the wagon sometimes? Yes,” Obama said. “Am I a daily smoker, a constant smoker? No.”
Obama refused to say how many cigarettes he smokes, where he sneaks them or how often he lights up now that he’s in the White House.
