Michelle Obama chastises Trump ‘childish and unpatriotic’ after riots on Capitol Hill

Michelle Obama berated President Donald Trump for Wednesday’s riots on Capitol Hill, calling him “childish and unpatriotic” before delivering an emotional critique of how police have responded to the crowd over this summer’s Black Lives protests Matter.

In a statement posted to social media on Thursday, the former first lady said the riots were a “fulfillment of the wishes of a childish and unpatriotic president who cannot handle the truth about his own failures.”

Trump supporters descended on Capitol Hill on Wednesday after the president delivered a speech at a rally against the election results, falsely claiming the election was stolen from him and encouraging the crowd to fight back. The march quickly turned into chaos and bloodshed after a group of rioters entered the Capitol building, taking control of the Senate chamber and forcing lawmakers and journalists into hiding. In response, Trump posted a video on social media repeating more election lies and telling his supporters, “We love you.”

Obama also addressed the law enforcement response, which he said would have been much stronger if the rioters were black. “What if these rioters looked like the people who go to Ebenezer Baptist Church every Sunday?” she said. “What would have been different?”

“Seeing the divide between responses to yesterday’s riot and peaceful protests this summer and the broader race for racial justice is so painful,” she added. “It hurts. … city after city, day after day, we’ve seen cracked skulls and mass arrests, with law enforcement pepper spraying through a peaceful protest for a presidential photoshoot.

Obama compared the athletes kneeling during the national anthem, which Trump and his allies sharply criticized as being disrespectful of the flag, to Wednesday’s “unpatriotic” scene, saying it “made painfully clear that some Americans are in fact allowed to denigrate the flag. and the symbols of our nation. They just have to look in the right direction. “

Obama ended by saying, “Even in the dark there are glimmers of hope.” The road to recovery is not just for one person, one politician or one political party. But together, by coming in with “honest and unwavering love for our country,” the healing can begin.

Barack and Michelle Obama largely avoided criticizing their successors at the start of the Trump presidency. As the 2020 campaign intensified and Covid-19 ravaged the country, the two began to speak out more firmly. During her speech at the Democratic National Convention, the former first lady called Trump “a bad president for our country.”

“He’s had more than enough time to prove he can do the job, but he’s clearly over his head,” she said. “He can’t meet this moment. He just can’t be the one we need for us.”