Michelle Obama has revealed the one Trump-era policy that ‘keeps her up at night’.
Former First Lady opened up about her fears, her frustrations and strongly refusing to compromise on peace of mind in the second term of President Trump during a wide ranging conversation on the On Purpose with Jay Shetty podcast.
But for Obama, ‘that’s what’s happening to immigrants’ in this current climate. “When it’s not for myself anymore, it’s not the fear anymore.” I speed over the NJ turnpikes in a four car motorcade with a police escort. I’m Michelle Obama.”
But the ex-FLOTUS did concede that her worries remain close to close, saying: ‘I still worry about my daughters in the world, although my daughters are a bit recognizable.’
She, now 61, takes issue with tapping the fear she says revolves around people of color and immigrants throughout the land and said she fears that she is witnessing so much ‘bias,’ ‘racism,’ ‘ignorance’ that it is going unpunished in a political climate that, she claimed, is becoming increasingly polarized.
Obama also referenced concerns that migrants are not getting their due process under the existing administration and suggested a change in course in court fairness.
“We saw that we have leadership — that is, as you like, is kind of kangaroo court, kind of making not decisions with due process and not in courts, and we know those decisions aren’t being made,” she said.
Her brother Craig Robinson was on the podcast, and he related a memory of a traumatic childhood episode in which a Black police officer accused him of stealing a new bike. Michelle says she sees parallels between that bias today in immigration enforcement.
Earlier this month, her husband, former President Barack Obama, also spoke on the American politics scene, again without mentioning Trump, during a speech at Hamilton College.
I don’t think what we just witnessed with regard to economic policy and tariffs is going to be good for America, but that’s a specific policy. “This is more about what I’m concerned with, about a federal government threatening universities if they don’t disavow the students exercising their right to free speech.”
‘I am even more disturbed by the idea that a White House would say to law firms, ‘If you represent parties that we do not like, we’re going to take all our business or prevent you from being effective,’ he continued. “That kind of behavior is really contrary to what the basic compact that we have as Americans.”
Why Michelle Skipped Trump’s Inauguration
It was using her own podcast, IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson, that Michelle finally explained why she wasn’t at Trump’s 2025 Inauguration — after suffering the suspicion of countless — ever since she also passed up Jimmy Carter’s funeral last month.
‘The whole thing started with nothing to wear, it said bluntly.’ You see I walk around with the right dress and I travel with clothes just in case something pops off. I was like, if I wasn’t going to do this, I needed to tell my team I don’t even have a dress ready right? Because to say, let me do the right thing” is so easy.”
However, it drew backlash and some critics speculated that her choice summed up wider political splits, or even marital tensions with Barack Obama, who was there on his own for both events.
In lieu of people not understanding that I skipped the inauguration or my decision to make the choices that I made at the beginning of this year that were good for me, that was met with such ridicule, and such criticism. “They just accepted that there must have been some reason besides it falling apart, that my marriage was falling apart. People couldn’t believe that I was saying no for any other reason.”
The First Lady, now the former, said that the lack of her presence was down to scandal-free self care. “I’m so far down the road in life where I’m having to say who I am and what I want to do and all that is the way that I want it to be,” she said. “And how involves goin’ to therapy to get it all worked out just that and those terms?”
She is now teaching her daughters Sasha and Malia the art of saying no.
“I want them to practice now the art of saying no because I see it in them: pleasing, excelling, not to be taking anything for granted and always grateful.” ‘Feeling like they’re enough at the moment.” It’s a practice. Building it is a muscle. You don’t develop it because if you don’t constantly build it.”
Michelle Obama stood with Trump at 2020 inauguration, but later made her stance clear. But she has previously described Trump as a “convicted felon, a known slumlord”, and a “predator found liable for sexual abuse”, according to The Independent.