Former First Lady Michelle Obama revealed she cried for half an hour after she and former President Barack Obama boarded Air Force One as they left the White House for the last time.
“When those doors closed, I cried uncontrollably for 30 minutes because that’s how we held it together for eight years,” the former first lady said during an episode of her latest podcast shared with People.
Obama described the roller coaster of emotions she felt on January 20, 2017, after eight years in the White House, noting that it was essentially the only house her children had ever known.
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Former President Barack Obama waves to his wife Michelle as they board Special Air Mission 28000, a Boeing 747 serving as Air Force One, at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, January 20, 2017. (Reuters/Brendan McDermid)
“That day was so emotional for so many different reasons,” Obama said.
“We left the house we’d lived in for eight years, the only house our kids really knew,” she continued. “They remembered Chicago, but they had spent more time in the White House than anywhere else, so we said goodbye to the staff and all the people who helped raise them.”
The former first lady also revealed that she was not in a good mood the day Donald Trump took her husband’s place in the Oval Office, attacking the lack of diversity she noticed when Trump took the stage.
President-elect Donald Trump greets outgoing First Lady Michelle Obama on January 20, 2017. (Reuters)
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“To sit on that stage and see the opposite of what we were putting on display — there was no diversity, there was no color on that stage,” Obama said. “There was no reflection of the wider sense of America.”
“A lot of people took pictures of me and said, ‘You weren’t in a good mood?’ No, I wasn’t! But you had to keep it together like you do for eight years,” she added.
She also took aim at claims Trump made about crowd size at his inauguration, arguing that “there weren’t that many people.”
Michelle and Barack Obama and Melania and Donald Trump on Inauguration Day. (Reuters)
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“You walk through the Capitol, you wave hello, you get on Marine One and you take your last flight over the Capitol,” Obama said. “There weren’t that many people — we saw it, by the way!”
The former first lady’s feelings about that day were similar to those of her husband, who voiced his concerns the day Trump took over during a 2017 interview with Prince Harry.
“Well, the first thing that went through my mind was when I sat across from Michelle, how grateful I was that she had been my partner through that whole process,” the former president said, adding that he was “worryed about how it country is moving forward, but overall there was more calm than I expected.”
Michael Lee is a writer at Fox News. Follow him on Twitter @UAMichaelLee
