The first lady and President Obama sat down for a rare joint interview with People Magazine. Michelle Obama gave a surprising answer when asked for her reaction to Donald Trump’s stunning win on election night.
“I went to bed,” the first lady told People of skipping out on watching the results of Nov. 8. “Yes she did,” agreed President Barack Obama.
The joint sitdown was for the magazine’s cover issue that hit stands Wednesday. In the video clip below, Michelle Obama explains her election-night behavior.
“I don’t watch debates,” she says. “I don’t like to watch the political discourse, I never have.” Her next comment got a laugh out of the president: “I barely did with him.”
The Obamas actively campaigned for Hillary Clinton throughout the election cycle, with Michelle Obama’s “When they go low, we go high” mantra becoming an anthem for Clinton supporters and Democrats, and one adopted by the former presidential nominee.
Despite her vocal support of Clinton, the first lady echoes her husband’s outlook when it comes to accepting the future under a President Trump.
“Once you do what you can do, then you rest easy,” she explains. “It was in the hands of the American people. Anything that I felt about the election I said and I stand by. This is our democracy and this is how it works and so we are ready to work with the next administration and make sure that they are as successful as they can be, because that’s what’s best for this country.”
In the cover story, President Obama expressed confidence that the younger generations will continue to push the country in the right path of progress.
“The truth of the matter is that when I got elected, there was still racism and misogyny and, you know, anti-gay sentiment in America,” he said. “In the wake of this election, those elements are still there, but it doesn’t negate all the progress that’s been made. It just means that elements of our culture get amplified sometimes.”
He continued, “You talk to Malia and Sasha [Obama], the idea that you’d discriminate against somebody because they had a different sexual orientation? It’s crazy to them. That generation right behind us, and I believe each successive generation, as long as we’re doing our job of being good models for it, they’re going to move this country forward in a better direction.”
Also on Wednesday, Trump was named Time magazine’s Person of the Year.
To the magazine and in his subsequent interview about the honor on the Today show, Trump praised the outgoing president. Though they only met for the first time when President Obama invited the president-elect to the White House after his win, Trump says they talk and have gotten to know each other.
“He loves the country,” Trump said on Today. “He wants to do right by the country and for the country and we, obviously, disagree on certain things but I really like him as a person.”
The People cover features a smiling photo of the Obamas with the headline “The Obamas Say Goodbye.”
