Michelle Obama is doubling down on her reasons for avoiding Donald Trump’s inauguration — not because of any rumored problems in her marriage to Barack Obama but because she didn’t want to be present to witness the controversial MAGA leader’s swearing-in ceremony.
In the latest episode of her podcast, “IMO,” the former first lady explained that missing Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration was “right for me,” even though she felt a great deal of pressure to accompany her husband for the sake of tradition and protocol.
“It took everything in my power to not do the thing that was perceived as right, but do the thing that was right for me, that was a hard thing for me to do,” Obama explained in a conversation with actor Taraji P. Henson on the challenges of being Black women living in the spotlight.
The author and activist even said she had to “basically trick” herself into following through on her desire to skip the inauguration — by ensuring that she wouldn’t have an appropriate outfit to wear if she started feeling the pressure to attend.
“It started with not having anything to wear,” Obama said of the moment she finalized her decision. She explained that being first lady taught her to always have certain clothing at the ready if she suddenly had to attend a high-profile event, including a state funeral.
“I was like, if I’m not going to do this thing, I got to tell my team, I don’t even want to have a dress ready, right?” she said. “Because it’s so easy to just say let me do the right thing.”
She said she knew she wouldn’t be able to change her mind if she didn’t have a dress ready to wear.
Obama has raised eyebrows in recent months over her decision to skip Trump’s inauguration, which was attended by other past first ladies, Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush, and their husbands. Michelle Obama also didn’t attend the funeral for President Jimmy Carter in January, where she would have been seated next to Trump and his wife Melania.
Her absence from Trump’s inauguration immediately sparked rumors and “ridicule” that she and her husband were headed for divorce.
“People couldn’t believe that I was saying no for any other reason, they had to assume that my marriage was falling apart,” she acknowledged on the podcast, which she co-hosts with her brother Craig Robinson.
But as she explained, not attending events with her husband, or attending events solo, are part of her effort, since leaving the White House in 2017, to embrace the “art of saying no” when it feels like the right decision.
“It’s a muscle that you have to build,” Obama explained on the episode that dropped Wednesday. She said she had begun this “training late in life,” after spending the past 30 years in the public eye after her husband began his political career, culminating in his being elected president in 2008.
“I am just now starting to build it,” she said of the “muscle.” After her family’s eight years in the White House, Obama said she’s been digging deep in therapy to find out how the experience affected her.
“We made it through. We got out alive,” Obama said. “I hope we made the country proud. My girls, thank God, are whole. But what happened to me?”
“Going through therapy is getting me to look at the fact that maybe, maybe finally I’m good enough,” she added.
This is the second time in the past month that Obama has publicly discussed her decision to skip Trump’s inauguration. On the “Work in Progress” podcast, hosted by actress Sophia Bush, Obama didn’t mention Trump by name but she said she had chosen to skip a “real big” event because “I chose to do what’s best for me, not what I had to do.”
Obama has previously been open about her dislike for Trump, who promoted the lie that her husband was not a U.S. citizen. During her speech at the 2024 Democratic National Convention, she also took digs at Trump while praising his opponent Kamala Harris.
“Kamala has shown her allegiance to this nation, not by spewing anger and bitterness, but by living a life of service and always pushing the doors of opportunity open to others,” Obama said. She alluded to Trump benefiting from “generational wealth” and getting multiple chances at becoming more rich and powerful after bankrupting businesses or choking “in crisis.”
“If things don’t go our way, we don’t have the luxury of whining or cheating others to get further ahead,” she said. “No. We don’t get to change the rules, so we always win.”
Obama also suggested that Trump was threatened by her and her husband.
“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,” she said.
