‘Big mistake’: Michelle Obama blasted after broadside against Donald Trump

The feud between former US first lady Michelle Obama and her husband’s successor, Donald Trump, has been reignited.

Donald Trump has hit back at former US first lady Michelle Obama, saying she made a “big mistake” by attacking him at a recent rally in support of his opponent, Kamala Harris.

The former president, who is the Republican candidate in next week’s presidential election against Ms Harris, was responding to recent remarks in which Mrs Obama condemned what she called his “horrible behaviour”.

“You know who’s nasty to me? Michelle Obamaaaa,” said Mr Trump at a rally in Atlanta, Georgia (emphasis his). The crowd responded with a chorus of jeers.

“Oooooh. I always tried to be so nice and respectful, oooh oh oh oh. She opened up a little bit of a box. She opened up a little bit of something. Oh, she was nasty, wooooo.

“Shouldn’t be that way. That was a big mistake that she made.”

Mr Trump at the rally in Atlanta, Georgia. Picture: Christian Monterrosa/AFP

This was a recurring theme throughout Mr Trump’s day. At another point, he accused Mrs Obama’s husband, former president Barack Obama, of putting “us in a lot of danger” with his foreign policy decisions.

“To be honest with you, if I didn’t have somewhat of a relationship with Russia and Putin and all, we had to have it,” said Mr Trump.

“And by the way, getting along with President Xi and Putin and Kim Jong-un of North Korea, if you remember, when I met with Obama. His wife was very nasty to me the other day.

“Like, that was not nice. She was very nasty. She said nasty things. I was always, I was always very, I was always very respectful of her. But she, she got up there, which shows you how nervous they are about what’s happening.

“But she was nasty two days ago, she got up and said some bad things she shouldn’t have said. They were wrong, too. But we’re going to turn our country around.”

Mr Trump supplemented this, a little later, with a post on his social media platform, Truth Social, focused on Mrs Obama.

“Fox News spends far too much time promoting the Democrats, their surrogates, and their agenda. Today I watched, over and over again, an angry and totally out of control Michelle Obama trying to save the dying campaign of Comrade Kamala Harris,” he wrote.

Mrs Obama at the Harris campaign event that drew Mr Trump’s ire. Picture: Brandon Bell/Getty Images via AFP

Mr Trump’s remarks followed an appearance by Mrs Obama at a Harris campaign event in the key swing state Michigan.

In her speech, the former first lady spoke at length about what she described as an ongoing threat to women’s reproductive rights and healthcare. She also suggested that Ms Harris was being held to a higher standard than her opponent.

“We expect her to be intelligent and articulate. To have a clear set of policies. To never show too much anger. To prove time and time again that she belongs,” said Mrs Obama.

“But for Trump, we expect nothing at all. No understanding of policy, no ability to put together a coherent argument, no honesty, no decency, no morals.

“Instead, too many people are willing to write off his childish, mean-spirited antics by saying, ‘Well, Trump’s just being Trump.’ Rather than questioning his horrible behaviour.”

Mr Trump’s opponent, Kamala Harris. Picture: Brandon Bell/Getty Images via AFP

In her remarks, which were often unusually searing by her standards, Mrs Obama said that many senior figures who had served with Mr Trump during his first term in the White House were now refusing to support him.

One of those critics, General Mark Milley, was the most senior US military officer under Mr Trump, and recently described him as “a fascist to his core”.

“I hope you’ll forgive me if I’m a little frustrated that some of us are choosing to ignore Donald Trump’s gross incompetence while asking Kamala to dazzle us at every turn,” Mrs Obama said.

“I hope that you will forgive me if I’m a little angry that we are indifferent to his erratic behaviour, his obvious mental decline, his history as a convicted felon, a known slum lord, a predator found liable for sexual abuse.

“All of this while we pick apart Kamala’s answers from interviews that he doesn’t even have the courage to do.”

In any other profession or arena, Mr Trump’s criminal track record and character would be “embarrassing, shameful” and he would be disqualified, she argued.

“I hope that you will forgive me if I am worried that we will blow this opportunity to finally turn the page on the ugliness once and for all,” she said.

“Because believe me, if Donald Trump is president again, at some point or another, that ugliness will touch all of our lives.

“It will not matter what you look like, how you worship, who you love, or how you vote, if you don’t make six or eight or 12 figures.

“If you’re not famous, if you criticise or disagree with him in any way, if he doesn’t view you as his equal or relevant to his ambitions, I promise you, he will not think about you when he gets into the Oval Office, and that will have real consequences for all of us.”

Ms Harris and Mrs Obama at the event in Michigan. Picture: Brendan Smialowski/AFP

When Mr Trump was elected as the 45th president of the United States in 2017, Mrs Obama said he was given a pass, with Americans betting “he couldn’t possibly be that bad”.

She said others didn’t think it mattered who was the US president, while some “thought it’d be a good idea just to blow up our entire democracy”.

“Let us not forget the incompetence and the corruption, the chaos that was the cornerstone of his entire four years in office,” she added.

Mrs Obama cited examples from Mr Trump’s term, including his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, for which she claimed he was “woefully unprepared”.

“He had no clue how to get us out of that crisis, no ability to bring back the millions of jobs we lost so suddenly,” she argued.

“No idea how to get our students back into school safely, no attempt to help stem the epidemic of loneliness and isolation.

“All of this occurred with Trump in charge, and sadly, this was just this tragic exclamation point on his disastrous presidency, installing judges and justices who have now stripped away our reproductive freedoms, cracking down on protesters marching to protect their sons from being shot because of the colour of their skin, rolling back protections for LGBT Americans, fanning conspiracy theories, unleashing hatred in our communities.”

Then, when the American people “fired him from a job that was too big for him to begin with, he tried to steal it, egging on a violent mob that breached our nation’s Capitol,” said Mrs Obama, referring to the Capitol riot of January 6, 2021.

“There’s too much we stand to lose if we get this one wrong,” she said of this election.

Of course, Mr Trump would disagree.

Originally published as ‘Big mistake’: Michelle Obama blasted after broadside against Donald Trump