Michelle Obama is back in the headlines — and once again is whining at President Trump for his decision to demolish the East Wing of the White House and replace it with a ballroom.
Obama popped up on the Jamie Kern Lima podcast yesterday. I’ll admit, I had barely heard the name before — she’s a cosmetics mogul who built her brand on QVC and later sold it to L’Oréal for over a billion dollars. Now she hosts a podcast that can best be described as “white Oprah”:
During a Tuesday, Nov. 25, appearance on the Jamie Kern Lima Show podcast, Obama, who served as the first lady alongside her husband, former President Barack Obama, from 2009 to 2017, shared her feelings while seeing the demolition take place.
“What did it feel like for you and your body when you saw the East Wing being demolished?” host Kern Lima asked Obama.
The mother of two noted, “It’s not about me, it’s about us and our traditions and what they stand for. I think in my body I felt confusion because I’m like, ‘Well, who are we? What do we value and who decides that?’ ”
Is it just me, or is this an absolutely bizarre way to talk? “How did you feel in your body?” What does that even mean? Is she nudging Michelle to say she felt physically ill? And Michelle’s answer is just as strange: “I think in my body I felt confusion…”
Why not just say “I was confused”? Who else’s body would she be feeling it in? This is the kind of pseudo-therapeutic jargon that passes for deep insight in these circles, and it’s completely ridiculous. Anyway…she wasn’t done:
“That’s the thing that’s going through my head a lot lately. ‘Who are we? What are the rules?’ ” she expressed. “Because I’m confused by what are our norms and our mores, not the laws, but how do we live together? That’s the part of it that hurts. It’s not the house … I’m just, you know, just trying to understand the assignment. And so I think I felt a loss for us as a nation.”
Look, I get it — the East Wing was traditionally the First Lady’s domain, and if Michelle Obama feels its removal is some kind of national loss, fine. She’s entitled to that view. But does she seriously not understand that whatever replaces it could also serve the country in a meaningful way? The entire framing here is relentlessly negative, as if something precious has been stolen from America and we’re all supposed to mourn it.
And this isn’t even the first time she’s pushed this same narrative. In a separate interview earlier this month, she said this:
After explaining why she wanted to focus on beauty and fashion in her third book, she discussed the “renovating” that President Donald Trump has unleashed on the White House’s East Wing, which has traditionally been the office and domain of the first lady.
“When we talk about the East Wing, it is the heart of the work. And to denigrate it, to tear it down, to pretend like it doesn’t matter—it’s a reflection of how you think of that role,” Obama said. “Whether the West Wing understood it or not, I used to tell them: All the stuff we do on the East Wing, from the clothes I wear to [family dogs] Bo and Sunny to Malia and Sasha and grandma, those were five extra approval points that he got, because we provided a balance.”
And then in an interview with the Today show:
Bush Hager commented, “Well, there’s no guidebook,” and Obama replied, “There’s no guidebook,” before adding, “There’s barely a staff. Now we don’t have a building,” referring to the demolition of the East Wing. Bush Hager, laughing, said, “I know, R.I.P. the East Wing.”
That’s three interviews in a month, all hammering the same point. It’s obvious she’s leaning hard into the narrative that the current president has committed some great national sin and that we’re all supposed to feel heartbroken about it.
And speaking of norms and “understanding the assignment,” former presidents are generally expected to stay out of the day-to-day politics of their successors. They usually keep a respectful distance, avoid meddling, and let the next administration govern. Barack Obama blew through that guardrail already, launching an effort to pressure California into gerrymandering its House seats ahead of the midterms — a direct pushback against Trump’s redistricting strategy in states like Texas.
Now Michelle Obama is crossing the same line, and for absolutely no clear benefit. She’s out promoting a book about White House fashion, yet somehow using every stop to gripe about the East Wing. It’s not going to stop the demolition. It’s not going to change Trump’s decision. Dragging this out week after week doesn’t look thoughtful or principled — it just looks like petty, partisan sniping.
Michelle Obama really needs to let this go. The new ballroom is a smart, useful upgrade — and long overdue. She can either acknowledge that something positive is being built or simply return to doing what former first ladies usually do: sell books about fashion, enjoy the spotlight when she wants it, and stay out of the partisan fray.
