Michelle Obama tells Trump the presidency could be a ‘black job’

“His limited and narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hard-working, highly educated and successful people who also happened to be black,” the former first lady said of Trump late Tuesday.

She also mocked Trump for his campaign remark about unspecified “black jobs” that he claimed were being taken away from black Americans by migrants entering the United States.

“Who's going to tell him that the job he's currently looking for might be one of those 'black jobs'?” Obama asked, drawing cheers from the crowd.

Trump and his campaign team had previously rejected allegations that he had committed racist attacks.

At a campaign rally in North Carolina on Wednesday, Trump complained that former President Obama had personally attacked him during his speech at the convention. Trump himself has been criticized in recent weeks, including by allies, for attacking Harris rather than focusing on her policies.

“He was very mean last night,” Trump told the crowd. “I try to be nice to people, you know, but it's a little harsh when they get personal.”

Trump launched his political career with false, racist attacks on Barack Obama's citizenship and repeated similar attacks on Harris. In the former first lady's 2018 memoir, “Becoming,” she wrote that Trump's attacks on Barack Obama's citizenship threatened her family's safety and were based on “an underlying bigotry and xenophobia.”

Obama also drew a contrast with Trump and most Americans who did not grow up in wealthy circumstances like Trump, whose father was a real estate investor.

“We will never benefit from positive discrimination in generational wealth,” she said. “If we bankrupt a company … or drown in a crisis, we don't get a second, third or fourth chance,” she said. “If things don't go the way we want them to, we don't have the luxury of whining or cheating others to get ahead.”

“It's still the same old scam,” Obama said of Trump. “He's relying on ugly, misogynistic, racist lies as a substitute for real ideas and solutions that would actually improve people's lives.”

She compared the energy Harris brought to the Democratic convention and across the country to her husband's 2008 presidential campaign.

“There is something wonderfully magical in the air,” she told delegates and guests crowded into Chicago's United Center. “A familiar feeling that has been buried too deep for far too long. It is the contagious power of hope.”

“Hope returns.”

Barack Obama’s 2008 election campaign used the word “hope” as a slogan to bring him to the White House as the first black president of the United States.

Michelle Obama said Harris' story is “your story. It's my story. It's the story of the vast majority of Americans who are trying to build a better life.”

She said the race between Harris and Trump would be close and urged people to organize and mobilize voters.

“No matter how good we feel tonight or tomorrow or the day after, it will still be an uphill battle… so we must not be our own worst enemies,” she said.

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