2024-08-21 14:15:02
Former first lady Michelle Obama speaks on stage during the second day of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois.
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The NPR Network will be reporting live from Chicago throughout the week bringing you the latest on the Democratic National Convention.
Former first lady Michelle Obama received some of the loudest cheers of the night in Chicago as she told the excited crowd, “Hope is making a comeback!”
“To be honest, I’m realizing that until recently, I have mourned the dimming of that hope. Maybe you’ve experienced the same feelings, a deep pit in my stomach, a palpable sense of dread about the future. And for me, that mourning has been mixed with my own personal grief,” Obama said.
She shared that the last time she was in Chicago it was to memorialize her mother, Marian Robinson, who died in May at the age of 86.
Robinson moved into the White House when her son-in-law, former President Barack Obama, was elected to help raise the Obama’s two daughters.
“Kamala Harris is more than ready for this moment. She is one of the most qualified people ever to seek the office of the presidency and she is one of the most dignified — a tribute to her mother, to my mother, and probably to your mother too, the embodiment of the stories we tell ourselves about this country,” Obama said.
Watch Obama’s full remarks:
In some of her sharpest comments she’s made toward former President Donald Trump, former first lady Michelle Obama called him out for promoting birtherism and other racist comments during her speech at the DNC tonight.
The Obamas were targets of unfounded claims by Trump and other Republicans that former President Barack Obama’s birth certificate was a forgery. It was a claim that followed the Obamas throughout his presidency.
The former first lady hinted that the public should likely expect the same kind of attacks toward Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
“Unfortunately, we know what comes next. We know folks are going to do everything they can to distort her truth,” Obama said. “My husband and I, sadly, know a little something about this. For years, Donald Trump did everything in his power to try to make people fear us.”
She continued, “His limited and narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hardworking, highly educated, successful people who also happened to be Black.”
In a moment that got the crowd on their feet laughing and cheering, Obama said, “Who’s going to tell him that the job he’s currently seeking might just be one of those ‘Black jobs’?”
It was a jab at Trump’s comments he made during his June debate against President Joe Biden. Trump said immigrants coming into the U.S were “taking Black jobs now.” The remark has been criticized and mocked by opponents of the former president.
