Video screen capture: Washington Post
In an interview to be aired Monday night, first lady Michelle Obama answered a question posed by Oprah Winfrey about the current state of hope, her husband’s stock in trade as a junior senator running for the presidency in 2008, in a fashion that’s captured a great deal of likely undesired attention:
‘[N]ow we are feeling what not having hope feels like.’
President-elect Donald Trump, despite boos in the background at a weekend rally in Mobile, Ala., responded to the first lady’s remark in a manner that further evidenced an uncommonly rapid thawing in relations between the Trump and Obama (if not Clinton) camps:
‘I honestly believe she meant that statement in a different way than the way it came out.’
During his visit to the White House in the immediate aftermath of the Nov. 8 election, Trump reported, Michelle Obama “could not have been nicer.”
As to hope itself, here’s what Trump told the Alabama audience: “I assume [the first lady] was talking about the past and not the future. ... I believe there is tremendous hope, and beyond hope we have such potential. This country has such potential. You watch: It’s going to be so special. Things are going to happen like you haven’t seen happen in many, many decades.”
