Share on FacebookIn a moment of honest reflection, former First Lady Michelle Obama shared that she couldn’t bring herself to smile during President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Speaking in the audio version of her memoir Becoming—played during an interview with ABC News’ Robin Roberts—Obama described how she deliberately gave up trying to appear cheerful.
“The vibrant diversity of the two previous inaugurations was gone,” she said. “Someone from Barack’s administration might have said that the optics there were bad … But in this case, maybe it did. Realizing it, I made my own optic adjustment. I stopped even trying to smile.”
On Leadership and Living with the Results
Asked by Roberts what she thinks of the Trump administration’s actions, Obama responded without naming specific policies: “Being the commander-in-chief is a hard job. You need discipline, and you need to read, and you need to be knowledgeable. You need to know history. You need to be careful with your words. But voters make those decisions, and once the voters have spoken, we live with what we live with.”
Still Angry About Birth Lie
In Becoming, Michelle Obama expressed deep anger over Trump’s false claims that Barack Obama wasn’t born in the U.S. She said she would “never forgive” him for putting her daughters at risk by spreading that conspiracy theory. She labeled the birther movement as “crazy and mean-spirited” and said it was fueled by “underlying bigotry and xenophobia hardly concealed.”
Trump Fires Back
Trump responded to her memoir, saying, “She got paid a lot of money to write a book and they always expect a little controversy.” He also took the opportunity to criticize former President Obama’s military spending, saying, “I’ll never forgive [President Obama] for what he did to our United States by not funding it properly. It was depleted. It was old and tired.”
A First Lady Unfiltered
Whether you agree with her or not, Michelle Obama’s candid words have reignited debate over tradition, transition, and truth in American politics—and how first ladies, too, carry the weight of the presidency’s public face.
