During an appearance with Oprah Winfrey Friday, First Lady Michelle Obama declared that the election of Donald Trump has ushered in a new era of hopelessness.
“We feel the difference now. See, now, we are feeling what not having hope feels like,” said the First Lady, despite ample evidence to the contrary. “Hope is necessary. It’s a necessary concept and Barack didn’t just talk about hope because he thought it was just a nice slogan to get votes. He and I and so many believe that — what else do you have if you don’t have hope. What do you give your kids if you can’t give them hope?”
As he’s become famous for, Trump quickly fired back, addressing Obama’s “hopeless” assessment of the country during his final “Thank You” rally, held in Mobile, Alabama on Saturday.
“Michelle Obama said yesterday that there’s no hope,” he told the crowd, which responded to Obama’s declaration with boos. “But I assume she was talking about the past, not the future…” he added.
“Because I’m telling you, we have tremendous hope, and we have tremendous promise and tremendous potential,” he continued. “We are going to be so successful as a country again. We are going to be amazing.”
Trump then softened his critique by offering the First Lady and her husband some (backhanded) praise.
“I actually think she made that statement not meaning it the way it came out, I really do,” he said. “Because I met with President Obama and Michelle Obama in the White House, my wife was there — she could not have been nicer. I honestly believe she meant that statement in a different way than it came out.”
Watch Trump’s comments via Mediate.
Read John Nolte’s response to Michelle’s grim, “anti-science” assessment of America’s state of mind.
