Michelle Obama has been promoting her coffee table book, The Look, for weeks now. She’s been making the rounds of talk shows and podcasts, not 60 Minutes or the New York Times. Well, Michelle gave a lengthy interview to Jamie Kern Lima, who is good friends with the Duchess of Sussex (and Lima interviewed Meghan months ago as well). Lima asked Michelle the question everyone wanted to ask: what does MO think of Donald Trump’s demolition of the White House East Wing? Traditionally, the East Wing housed the First Lady’s offices and entertaining spaces, and that’s where Michelle’s office and staff worked from during the Obama administration. Well, Michelle had some thoughts:
Former first lady Michelle Obama got candid about her response to seeing the East Wing of the White House being demolished. President Donald Trump previously ordered the East Wing, including the office of the First Lady, the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden and more, to be demolished in favor of putting in his $300 million ballroom. During a Tuesday, Nov. 25, appearance on the Jamie Kern Lima Show podcast, Obama, who served as the first lady alongside her husband, former President Barack Obama, from 2009 to 2017, shared her feelings while seeing the demolition take place.
“What did it feel like for you and your body when you saw the East Wing being demolished?” host Kern Lima asked Obama.
The mother of two noted, “It’s not about me, it’s about us and our traditions and what they stand for. I think in my body I felt confusion because I’m like, ‘Well, who are we? What do we value and who decides that?’ ”
The concept of reevaluating the nation in the wake of the current administration has been on the former first lady’s mind.
“That’s the thing that’s going through my head a lot lately. ‘Who are we? What are the rules?’ ” she expressed. “Because I’m confused by what are our norms and our mores, not the laws, but how do we live together? That’s the part of it that hurts. It’s not the house … I’m just, you know, just trying to understand the assignment. And so I think I felt a loss for us as a nation.”
And while she might feel one way about what the demolition might symbolize on a grand scale, Obama said that it wasn’t like seeing her own house being torn down.
“Personally, you know, that’s not our house,” she explained. “That’s the People’s House.”
That was the feeling a year ago, when Trump “won” again – nothing matters anymore, there are no norms or traditions or rules anymore. None of it matters. They elected him after he incited a violent insurrection in which his supporters smeared feces on the walls of the Capitol. Of course they didn’t care that he demolished the White House East Wing and paved over Jackie Kennedy’s garden. Of course they don’t care that he’s turned the Oval Office into a tacky and gaudy gold-plated disaster. There is no “normal” anymore.
Photos/screencaps courtesy of the Jamie Kern Lima Show. Additional pic courtesy of Getty.
