Former first lady Michelle Obama addressed the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Tuesday, directly challenging former President Donald Trump, who has spent the better part of a decade vilifying the Obama family.
“Donald Trump has done everything he can to make people fear us,” Obama said. “Instead of offering real ideas and solutions that will actually make people’s lives better, he has doubled down on ugly, misogynistic, racist lies.”
“I want to know who’s going to tell him that the job he’s looking for right now might be one of those ‘black jobs,’” she joked. The crowd roared with laughter at the joke, noting that Trump had recently referred to low-skilled jobs as “black jobs.”
A Trump campaign spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Tuesday.
President Obama’s overtly partisan approach to the Republican nominee on Tuesday was unusual for a former first lady who has urged Americans to transcend politics.
Michelle Obama, one of the most popular figures in the Democratic Party, was mentioned as something of a fantasy presidential candidate earlier this summer as Democrats pressured President Joe Biden to drop out of the race following his performance in the June debates.
But the former first lady has never publicly expressed any intention to run for office. In contrast, Obama’s previous convention speeches often conveyed a clear desire to stay out of the political fray.
For example, Obama coined a catchphrase in her 2016 Democratic National Convention speech to abstractly criticize Trump and the Republican Party: “When they go low, we go high,” she said.
On Tuesday, she drew a contrast between Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump, seeking to tarnish Trump’s carefully cultivated image as a billionaire real estate and media mogul.
“Most of us will never have the grace to move forward from failure,” Obama said. “We will never benefit from the positive actions of generational wealth.”
“If we fail in business or get choked by a crisis, we don’t have a second, third or fourth chance,” she continued. “If things don’t go our way, we don’t have the luxury of whining or tricking others into getting ahead.
“We always win because we can’t change the rules,” she said.
