Michelle Obama Reveals What Keeps Her 'Up At Night' About Trump's Second Term
Former first lady Michelle Obama has opened up about her fears for the safety of immigrants and people of color due to President Donald Trump's immigration policies in his second term.
'I don't know that we will have the advocates to protect everybody, and that makes me — that frightens me, it keeps me up at night,' said Obama, who appeared with her brother Craig Robinson on Monday's edition of the 'On Purpose with Jay Shetty' podcast.
Obama and Robinson, earlier in the podcast, discussed their experiences with racial discrimination. Shetty then asked the former first lady about her 'hardest recent test' of fear she's experienced due to the color of her skin.
'Well, in this current climate, for me, it's what's happening to immigrants,' replied Obama, noting that she no longer has the 'fear' herself because she commutes in a motorcade, although she still worries about her two 'somewhat recognizable' daughters.
'My fears are what I know is happening out there in streets all over the city. And now that we have leadership that is sort of indiscriminately determining who belongs and who doesn't, and we know that those decisions aren't being made with courts and with due process.'
She then brought up a story Robinson had shared moments earlier about being stopped as a child in Chicago by a Black police officer who accused him of stealing a bicycle he'd bought.
″[They're making decisions like,] 'You don't look like somebody that belongs,' you know, 'I can determine just by looking at you that you're ... a good person or you're not a good person,'' she said.
'There's so much bias and so much racism and so much ignorance that fuels those kinds of choices, I worry for people of color all over this country.'
Obama's remarks arrive less than a week after she took to her 'IMO' podcast with Robinson to reveal why she skipped out on Trump's second inauguration despite the attendance of her husband, former President Barack Obama.
'People couldn't believe that I was saying no for any other reason, they had to assume that my marriage was falling apart,' said the former first lady of her decision, which fueled divorce rumors.
'It took everything in my power to not do the thing that was perceived as right, but do the things that was right for me, that was a hard thing for me to do.'
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