When Michelle Obama Said Trump is Putting Her 'Family's Safety at Risk': "I'd Never Forgive Him"

Michelle Obama was unforgiving of Donald Trump, as she wrote in her highly-anticipated memoir Becoming. The 448-page book was published in November 2018, detailing her personal life, family, and life before and after the White House. Among other topics, the former First Lady also discussed her dislike of the Republican front-runner, saying she'd never forgive him. 

The Washington Post reported that Michelle mentioned Trump's questions about her family's "Americanness," which she said put her family's safety at risk. "What if someone with an unstable mind loaded a gun and drove to Washington? What if that person went looking for our girls?" she wrote in an excerpt from her book, which The Post obtained an early copy of.

"The whole [birther] thing was crazy and mean-spirited, of course, its underlying bigotry and xenophobia hardly concealed. But it was also dangerous, deliberately meant to stir up the wingnuts and kooks. Donald Trump, with his loud and reckless innuendos, was putting my family's safety at risk. And for this, I'd never forgive him," she criticized the politician. 

For context, the now-78-year-old gave birth to the "birther" movement and questioned Obama's US citizenship during rallies, interviews, and social media platforms. Although he put the controversy to rest in 2016, he drew question marks about his political rival's birthplace on many occasions, including some we are listing below. 

On March 23, 2011, ex-President Trump said on The View, "Why doesn't he show his birth certificate? There's something on that birth certificate that he doesn't like." After a few days, on March 28, he again brought up the topic during a Fox News sit-down, "Millions of dollars in legal fees trying to get away from this issue. And I'll tell you what, I brought it up, just routinely, and all of a sudden a lot of facts are emerging and I'm starting to wonder myself whether or not he was born in this country," per CNN. 

He stretched the issue further on The Laura Ingraham Show, NBC's Today Show, and MSNBC's Morning Joe. On April 27, 2011, Obama made public his birth certificate to which Trump's campaign said in a statement, "Having successfully obtained President Obama’s birth certificate when others could not, Mr. Trump believes that President Obama was born in the United States." Finally, Trump himself ended the issue at a campaign event in his new Washington hotel, "President Barack Obama was born in the United States. Period." 

However, Michelle's anger wasn't limited to Trump's attacks on her family. She aimed at him for his lewd comments about grabbing women, "It was an expression of hatred that had generally been kept out of polite company, but still lived in the marrow of our supposedly enlightened society — alive and accepted enough that someone like Donald Trump could afford to be cavalier about it." 

But Trump brushed off Michelle's criticism, saying, "She got paid a lot of money to write a book and they always expect a little controversy." 

This article was originally published on 06.20.24.