Michelle Obama has been relatively quiet about the Trump administration since she and her husband moved out of the White House. (She is the woman who once said, "When they go low, we go high.") But on a few choice occasions, she gives us a little peek into how she feels about the Trump era. At a book event in conversation with late-night host Stephen Colbert earlier this week, she didn't mention the current president explicitly, but she did comment that it feels like America now is "living with divorced dad.”
The event took place in London during the international leg of her book tour for Becoming, her record-smashing best-selling memoir. And her appearances have not only reminded audiences why the fashionable former First Lady was once named America's most admired woman, but also given her an opportunity to be more candid about the current political climate. During the discussion, Obama compared the U.S. to a "teenager" adjusting to family turmoil.
"We are a teenager," she said, according to The Independent. "And we come from a broken family, we're a teenager, we're a little unsettled, and having good parents, it's tough, sometimes you spend the weekend with divorced dad and that seems fun until you get sick. That's what America is going through, living with divorced dad.”
The Washington Post writes that her characterization prompted Colbert to do an impersonation of the President. Obama reportedly only laughed and shook her head, keeping things classy and refraining from elaborating further on her comments. However, she seemed to direct the conversation toward Trump later when she spoke about how living in the White House didn't change her husband, Barack Obama, or their children.
"We were always ourselves, the presidency does not change who you are. It reveals who you are," she said.
Still, she isn't too pessimistic about the direction in which America is headed. At the event, she struck a hopeful note and reminded people of how resilient humans have been, even in the face of dire challenges.
"It may feel like a dark chapter, but any story has its highs and lows, but it continues. Yeah, we're in a low, but we've been lower," she said. "We've had tougher times with more to fear. We're lived through slavery and the Holocaust and segregation and we've always come out on the other end, better and stronger."
