In a recent podcast, former First Lady Michelle Obama said that she cried “uncontrollably” after President Trump’s inauguration – and they were hardly tears of joy.
She made the comments on her new podcast, “The Light Podcast,” which launched last week. Describing her last trip with her husband, Barack Obama, on a presidential plane, after the inauguration of his successor, Michelle Obama said, “When those doors shut, I cried for 30 minutes straight, uncontrollable sobbing, because that’s how much we were holding it together for eight years.”
The podcast is based on conversations in front of live audiences, with moderators including Oprah Winfrey, Tyler Perry, and David Letterman. On its debut, Mrs. Obama also made fun of the size of Trump’s inauguration crowd, a notorious sore point with the 45th president, and more seriously noted the lack of diversity and color onstage at the Capitol as Trump was sworn in as the 45 President.
She added, “After the inauguration – and we know whose inauguration we were at – that day was so emotional on so many different reasons. We were leaving the home we had been in for eight years, the only home our kids really knew.”
Trump fixated on the size of his crowd, small next to those for Obama, directing his press secretary to lie to reporters about it.
To laughter, Michelle Obama said, “You take your last flight off, flying over the Capitol, where there weren’t that many people there. We saw it.”
On the dais, former President George W. Bush was famously reported to have called Trump’s inauguration speech “some weird shit.”
Obama’s podcast accompanies The Light We Carry, her second book since leaving the White House after the memoir Becoming.