Michelle Obama Explains Why ‘Hope’ Is Necessary In Interview With Oprah
In the last one-on-one interview she will give as America’s First Lady, Michelle Obama sat down with none other than Oprah Winfrey for an intimate discussion at the White House.
The full, pre-recorded interview will be released tonight on CBS at 8 p.m. EST and again on OWN December 21 at 9p.m. ET. However, clips of the interview appeared late last week and had the media buzzing – not just because this is FLOTUS’ last public interview, but also because of the First Lady’s very powerful and provocative words.
“We feel the difference now. See, now, we are feeling what not having hope feels like.” Although Obama never directly mentioned Trump during the clip, it seemed apparent that FLOTUS is addressing the looming sentiment of despair behind what many people feel towards Trump taking over the White House.
Recent research shows that Trump’s overall transition to the White House has garnered the lowest approval ratings of any president since 1992. According to another study released earlier in December conducted by the Pew Research Center, more than one in three Americans believe that Donald Trump is going to be a poor or terrible President.
Michelle Obama seems to think much of this has to do with the lack of hope people see in the future of the country under the Trump administration.
“Hope is necessary. It’s a necessary concept and Barack didn’t just talk about hope because he thought it was just a nice slogan to get votes. He and I and so many believe that — what else do you have if you don’t have hope?” she says in the interview.
President Obama catapulted into the spotlight at the 2004 DNC convention, where the young Senator from Illinois gave a groundbreaking speech foreshadowing his historic campaign to the White House nearly four years later.
“Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope?” was the question turned statement that became Obama’s rallying cry that night 12 years ago, and would go on to drive his campaign, and eventual presidency four years later. Yet even in the weeks after the 2016 election with many Americans feeling hopeless, President Obama has maintained an ethos of optimism for the country’s future:
“This is not the apocalypse,” Obama said to his staffers the day after this past November’s election. “History does not move in straight lines; sometimes it goes sideways, sometimes it goes backward.”
Though tonight’s interview will be the last from Michelle Obama as First Lady it will be sure to leave America with the power of hope and insight in a time of uncertainty.
Tune in to Oprah Winfrey’s interview with Michelle Obama tonight at 8p.m. on CBS.
