The inauguration of Donald Trump in 2017 was a turning point for the United States, ushering in a new leader in the White House after eight years of the Obama administration. Former First Lady Michelle Obama recently shared her experience of that day, in a clip from her podcast “Michelle Obama: The Light Podcast.”
In the clip, Obama described boarding Air Force One for the last time at Joint Base Andrews, after leaving the White House, and said she broke out in tears.
“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,” Obama said, adding that the inauguration ceremony itself was also an emotional experience due to the lack of diversity on the stage.
“There were tears, there was that emotion. But then to sit on that stage and watch the opposite of what we represented on display — there was no diversity, there was no color on that stage. There was no reflection of the broader sense of America,” Obama said.
The experience of attending the inauguration was a difficult one for Obama, and many other Americans, as Trump’s election marked a major shift in American politics. Four years later, Trump became the first president in more than a century to skip his successor’s inauguration.
The episode of “The Light Podcast” is set to be released on February 18th and will be an opportunity to hear more of Obama’s perspective on the inauguration and her time in the White House.
