The Michelle Obama Interview (from “Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso”)

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28:30Sam Fragoso:Wayfair, every style, every home. You graduated from Princeton. You get a degree from Harvard Law and you promptly get a job as a junior associate at the Chicago law firm Sidley in Austin. Now, I want to talk about the day you meet your future husband. You're on the 47th floor. You're in your office where you typically ate most of your lunches because you were working 70 hours a week. You were assigned, I think, to be his advisor. So walk me through this. Barack, at the time I was a first year, was a first year law student. So he interviewed for his first year summer, which, by the way, for a firm like Sidley and Austin that was inundated with candidates, it was rare for them to select a first year in their program.

29:17But he was special. And that's all I heard was, boy, have we found somebody. Everybody that met him, that interviewed him was like, he's amazing. And the secretary's like, and he's cute, and he's this, and he's that, and he's Barack Obama. And I was like, okay, whatever. So I get a picture and the picture is not a great picture. I mean, it looks like he's gone into like a 7-Eleven to take his picture. Right. I mean, it's bad lighting. And, you know, and I was like, I don't think he's that cute. And I'm thinking, OK, these are white people that are flipping over an articulate black man. So I was like, let me just lower my expectations.

29:58And then it was like he was from Hawaii. And I was like, what black people are in Hawaii? Right. So I already had in my mind that this was going to be some nerdy, ultra conservative. You know, I just sort of painted a picture, not not an angry picture. I was just like, oh, I know what I'm getting. So I called him first on the phone just to introduce myself. And when he picked up the phone, he he had that Barack Obama voice that I didn't expect because I had already pictured him as kind of a dweeby kind of person who would be. appealing to white people as a black man. Do you ever do his voice back to him?

30:37All the time. We all do it. He was like, hello, it's Barack Obama. I can't get down that low. But I was like, whoo. The voice was sexy over the phone. I was like, wow, this is Barack Obama? Look at this photo again. Hold on. Yeah. So my job was to greet him and he was late. And then I was like, you're late at the Robinson household. You don't. My dad's not late. How are you late? Right. But I think it was raining and something happened. And as I would learn, that's kind of him, you know. But I went to greet him at the reception's office and there he was, which I was like, wow, I didn't expect this.

31:20He was tall, handsome, had some flavor. And I was like, wow. You got past the tardiness. But I was still sort of like, OK, so we got settled. And then I had to take him to lunch after he had spent his day getting his paperwork, finding his cubicle and all that sort of stuff. So I took him out to a lovely lunch that was expensed by the firm. And we talked for hours. So this is the part of the story I want to ask you about. In the absence of your husband being here, I thought we could read from a passage of his book, The Audacity of Hope, in which he writes about this first encounter with you over lunch.

31:57I haven't read this in a while. I imagine it's been a minute. The audacity of hope. Oh, Michelle was full of plans that day, on the fast track, with no time, she told me, for distractions, especially men. But she knew how to laugh, brightly and easily, and I noticed she didn't seem in too much of a hurry to get back to the office. And there was something else, a glimmer that danced across her round, dark eyes whenever I looked at her. The slightest hint of uncertainty As if deep inside She knew how fragile things really were And that if she ever let go Even for a moment All her plans might quickly unravel That touched me somehow That trace of vulnerability I wanted to know that part of her Oh, what a great writer he is I wonder I'm sure you haven't read that in a long time I sure haven't It's beautiful, though.

32:58You were the student who is, as you described yourself, a box checker, a color-coded noter. That description of you, like, did you believe your plans would unravel if you let go for a second? The vulnerability that I think he felt was my honesty and forthrightness about life. You know, you make plans and God laughs, as they say. This was the first time in my life when I realized that I was just on a path. That I had, I didn't know anything about the path. Why did I pick law school? Because I didn't know what else I was going to do after Princeton. And the options before me, you could work at Procter & Gamble and do sales.

33:43You could go to Wall Street. And I was like, that doesn't sound good to me. I'm not ready for that. So what am I good at? I can talk and argue and write. I'll apply to law school. And then you apply to law school and you get into Harvard and you go. And this was after we met. So these thoughts were, you know, I was just in it. I was a first year, right? So the vulnerabilities that he saw were just me understanding that life wasn't certain. But I think as we got to know each other and started dating, he was with me through that process. I lost my father in the time that I met him. I lost one of my best friends to cancer, and she died suddenly.

34:28She was like 26 at the time. She was my age. She was diagnosed in December, and I was at her bedside as she was taking her last breaths in May. And she was healthy. You know, now you're confronted with this stuff ends, and it ends suddenly, and it ends unfairly. And, well, what am I doing sitting here on the 47th floor? And now I've met this guy who I'm starting to fall in love with who did things completely differently. His path, as I said, was swervy and confusing. And his childhood was something that I never understood or experienced. He had lived in places that I never thought about. And he was doing pretty good.

35:12Barack was with me through that process of thinking, who do I really want to be? You know, and it's not just box checking. I couldn't do that. I could box check my way. I knew I could become a partner, you know, but I was also starting to learn about my fellow junior partners and I was realizing you don't like this either. And that's going to be your future if you keep going. I started to realize that there was time and I hadn't done anything else, Sam. In my life, I'd worked in Bob Goldman's book bindery. I'd been a babysitter. I'd been a camp counselor, but I didn't have internships like that.

35:52I didn't get to see banking or other fields or community service or nonprofit. I saw nothing. I knew nothing. And it was just becoming clear to me how little I knew about life. And here I was about to sink my fate into a career that I didn't even like. And my father died. And life is short. And this guy that I know, he's done something totally different. Let me put down the box checking. Let me get off the path. Let me take a risk and try something else. Let me swerve with him. Let me swerve with him. 10 years of public life, eight years in the White House, around the time he starts to run for state Senate and then senator leading up to 2008.

36:41You said in the past, first of all, after not wanting to be in politics but supporting my husband because I love my country, my decision to support him had nothing to do with what was good for me. Yeah. As he's talking about politics, trust me, I am pulling back at him. I'm like, this is politics is stupid. I mean, I grew up in Chicago. I know Chicago politics. Corruption. Corruption, incompetence, insularity, people holding on to power, people not wanting, you know, I'd seen it all. And I knew people in politics. I was a seasoned person. And I was like, it's hard to do the right thing in politics.

37:22And then I was like, and you're this really smart, good guy, you know, good guys aren't in politics. Why would you want to do something dumb like that? They will eat you up alive. You told him that. Yeah. Yeah. And what did he say when you said that? You know, he had been an organizer on the South Side. He, you know, he spent as much time in these communities as I had. He knew the political structure. He just wasn't afraid of it. He was like, yeah, you're right. He didn't disagree. He was like, yeah, this is a tough road. But he was very, he had the same thing about him as I did. He knew what he could do.

38:01And I knew that. It wasn't that I didn't believe in him. I just didn't like politics. And I understood his limitations. And I'm more pragmatic and less of a dreamer. So that was my view all the way through. But I also thought, well, he has a passion for this. And I learned that, wow, when you find something that you do love, that's a gift. And it's not my place to stand in the way of that. I don't like it. But we are independent people. You support me. I support you. That will not be my life. That's your life. But even you not liking it. I mean, the amount of work you do for something you don't like.

38:47I mean, you're on the campaign trail. I don't like politics. They called you the closer. I don't like politics. I love people. Yes. And I love service. You're absolutely right. And I was surprised. You went out there and you write so beautifully in Becoming about enduring the 2008 campaign trail. And you say it's important for young people to know about this chapter, about this experience, when, quote, my whole persona was being distorted. What did that look like back then? And how did the press try to distort you? In my view, it was also a failing in Barack's campaign, his team of people. Because when I said, OK, I'm going to, you know, I didn't campaign for a state senate office.

39:36You know, I helped get petitions signed. I wasn't involved in his U.S. Senate race in a major way. I was supportive, but I had a career. I had small children, so on and so forth. I get out there on the campaign trail. I have a small team that I am given, you know, what people are hired. But the structure that I had my chief of staff, Melissa Winter, and I had one, my comms director, Katie McCormick Lullivelle. And the three of us, two white women and me and young. And we go out there and start going to Iowa. Site, you know, that's all we do. We're given an assignment. Yes. Not a comms team, not speech training, not a speech writer.

40:19I talk to no one about this. I got on the first flight out, landed, and there was a kid, some kid, waiting to pick me up. It looked like you, Sam. Young, even though you think you look like an old man. You look like a baby. And that's what every staffer on the Obama campaign, they were amazingly precocious, smart, engaged, serious people. Somebody would have on a suit and I'd get in a car and be dropped off at somebody's house. And you'd give speeches? I would talk because I was like, I didn't have a speech, but I would tell my story. So what was the distortion? What was the thing that hurt you?

41:05The distortion was when I became more effective because it wasn't what I said. My take is that I was having an impact. Oh, a positive impact. A positive impact. I mean, the backyards turned into, you know, churches and then they turned into a gymnasium at a school. I mean, the numbers of people that were in Iowa that were curious about this campaign, this candidate, and then his wife, who gave, I guess, gave them a glimpse into who he was as a man, his values, things like that. I think what I chose to talk about, which wasn't policy, I was like, I can't, I don't have time to learn about all of his policies because I still have a job, but I can talk about us as a family.

41:50That that was appealing to people and that was a connection. So it was just we were moving numbers in a way that drew attention to me that who is this who is the wife of this guy? And that's when before I knew it, press was at my events and cameras. And then there was one and then there was more. The criticism was severe. And then they said I was emasculating. And then they said I was angry. And then they said, you know, there were just all these terms that I was like, oh, my God, where is this coming from? You said you didn't love your country. I didn't love my country. And this stuff sort of spread out over time because.

42:29Can I show you something? Yes. I want you to just look at this and see if you remember this. Yeah, I remember this. Yeah. Yeah. I heard you say in the Becoming Doc, people would tell you, oh, Michelle, it's just politics. It's just politics. And you said, no, it's not just politics. It changes a person's soul. And I wondered, when you see this, when you think back on the things that they said, what they accused you of, what did that do to you? Well, at first it made me almost walk away completely. You know, I mean, my thing was, look, if I'm a hindrance to my husband's campaign, then I should just be at home in my job where I want to be anyway.

43:22I don't want to do this. And maybe I'm not good for him. Maybe I am not the right person. Did you really believe that? I believe that there was a lot of frustration. There was just frustration with the campaign. There was frustration with the way I as a spouse was treated, as a woman, as a black woman was being treated. that made me just want to say, I don't need this. We have a happy life. I don't want to get chewed up in somebody else's process and then not be protected in it, you know, because I also didn't have a complete press team because I understood what was going on. It just became exhausting.

44:11I understood that there was no one that was affirmatively looking out for me on my husband's campaign team, you know, Until it became a problem. I was angry about that. So it just became exhausting. And that kind of exhaustion is soul-sucking. And I talk about it because I want people out there to know that why should somebody write off this kind of stuff to being just politics? Like, it's okay. This is part of the game. And it's easy to do that when people say that. It's just politics. And it's like, no, let's be clear of what you're doing. I mean, Mrs. Grievance, that's what they call this. Yes, it was politics because it wasn't true.

44:56So in terms of me feeling it, it was soul sucking because it was a game. And I was like, I have to now play a game that this isn't about what it really is supposed to be about, which I knew going into it. That's why you didn't want to do it in the first place. That's what I want to know. When your husband's elected, you go into the White House, that game that you're talking about, because you strike me as someone, this is our third time meeting, you really don't want to bullshit if you don't have to. Now you're in the White House, first black family there. How do you maintain a sense of yourself, a sense of your authentic self, when the world is demanding you obscure parts of yourself, that you hide parts of yourself, that you have a perfect image that no one has?

45:42These hardships in the campaign prepared me. I mean, instead of quitting, I just said, okay, I got to be smarter. I've got to be more thoughtful. I have to be tighter, you know, because we're in it now. My husband's doing this and I'm seeing him less and less, right? Because he's got his own. So we're in it. It's like, hang on. It's like everybody's got to buckle up and we've got to, we're going to figure this out. We're going to figure out how I, as a Black woman in this arena, needs to communicate. How to soften, how to moderate tone in a way that I can be heard. I mean, it's the beginning of the going high, right?

46:30The going high philosophy that sometimes people are like, do we always go high? I was like, I don't, but I just don't go low in public. I go low in my kitchen table. I go low with my mom. I'm like, I let all that stuff out with people that I can safely let it out to. But my point became, what are we trying to do? We're trying to create change. We're trying to have an impact. We have the potential for doing this. I can do this. Do you not go low in public because you feel people can't handle it? I don't think it's useful. You don't think it's useful. I think if you're trying to get something done, the strategy is how do you and you're trying to communicate with people.

47:09If I'm going low, I'm just indulging my fear. I'm doing my worst instincts. It's selfish because it's like I'm just having a tantrum. You know, so now you see me angry, but you still don't hear me. What was clear was like, I can reach so many more people as long as I'm in the game. I can make changes. We can be more strategic, be more thoughtful. By that campaign, I understood that I had to take control of my own narrative, that I couldn't count on a team of people or other people on the campaign. I had to start taking charge of reshaping it because if I didn't and didn't do it quickly, I could easily be redefined and redefined negatively.

47:55So it was like, I've got to do this well. I want to talk about how you do this. Fellow Southsider and poet Gwendolyn Brooks writes, conduct your blooming in the noise and whip of the whirlwind. And I thought that was such a vivid description of what I imagine you had to do for eight years. And the role of first lady, like, I don't think people know this, but it's such an odd, like, there's no salary. There's a stipend. Yeah, there's a stipend. But the East Wing's filled with a staff with, like, no budget. Like, everything you do is you say, like, there's a soft power. But you focus on education, healthy eating, and military families.

48:37When you look back on this time now, why were those the issues that you wanted to give yourself to, that you wanted to give your platform to? What I learned over the course of my career, because by now I've done many things in life, right? When we're at this stage, I've been a lawyer. I've worked in city government. I've run departments. I've built a nonprofit organization. I come in as a professional. And so when I came into the first lady's job, it was that same mentality of, okay, first of all, let me decide what I care about. Because in this role as first lady, I pick it. You know, that's the beauty.

49:15Barack couldn't pick his issues. They were flying in on his table. You had to do all of them. I understood what the First Lady's power was. And I was like, I can do the, somebody else can do the flowers and all that. I'll look at it. I approve it. But, you know, there's a florist. They're good. It's like, give me some options. Number one, that was a minute. Now let's figure out, you know, all that stuff is important and it's important to do. I enjoyed it, but I didn't have to set the table. You know, I'm not cooking the meals. You know, I haven't cooked for a long time. That's, you know, let's let the people who cook, cook.

49:54Do you miss cooking? No, I don't. I don't. When I had to do it, I could find enjoyment in it. But, you know, it's like there are people who have spent time cooking. They're better than me. You can do it. You know, I seed that to you. And there's some people who love it so much that they want to do it. And they should. You should take something off your list and do the cooking because you like it. I'm in training. I'm getting better. So this is a good thing for me. You know, it's good. You should know how to cook. So I approached the job that way. So these, but I was also strategic because I was like, the other thing is like, I can't pick some issue that the president of the United States can't support.

50:35He was going to be working on health care. So I was like, okay, I do deeply care about health. I've learned about childhood obesity. I've dealt with that in my life. And I'm really passionate about that because our kids are growing up healthier. I was dealing with that as a mother, and I knew there was something that we could do there. So I started with nutrition because I thought that's going to tie into health care. Whether you support his health care plan or not, being healthy and living healthy and doing it for our kids, that's got to resonate. I started there. Over the course of the campaign, when it comes to joining forces and military families, this was an issue that I learned about as I campaigned.

51:16pain because I spent a lot of time in military communities on military bases. And I was beginning to understand that so many Americans have no idea what these families are sacrificing. I was honored. I was moved by who these mostly women were and how they had to move every eight years and how kids were going to school. I was learning so much. I thought no one knows. If you don't live in a military community, you have no idea. You just assume that you serve and sacrifice and you wave the flag, you start a war, and you have no idea what these families are going through. I was like, let's put our money where our mouth is.

51:56We believe in defense? Well, let's take care of the people who are defending us. They shouldn't be fighting for housing and child care. And we were in a war. We were visiting Walter Reed. We were seeing people coming back with no legs and no arms. we were dealing with the pains of caretakers and who were caring for a husband that would never walk or couldn't see. The first time you went to Walter Reed, you were scheduled to be there for 90 minutes. You stay for four to five hours. When you talk about that exact thing you said, people don't know the consequences, like the cost of going. When you see this current administration being as flippant as they are about it, you think about those troops you visited at Walter Reed.

52:39How do you hold that? How do you make sense of that in this moment? This moment has happened before. So it's not new. We talk about security and defense. We're spending so much money on it. Everybody feels good about it because only 1 % of us are really sacrificing for it. So it's easy to be in that position, you know, if you're not really looking at the people who serve. But you looked at those people. You spent a lot of time. And our administration did. The president did. The vice president did. And once you go into Walter Reed, when there's a war and the beds are full, the beds are full of not people who are dealing with diabetes or the heart attack that they had, which Walter Reed provides care all the time.

53:27But when the beds are filled with casualties and you see how young these kids are and you see how young their spouses are and you know what the road ahead is going to be for them. Irrevocably altered by war. I can't leave. Where do I have to go? I'm not going to finish this. You know, I'm not going to see everybody. I'm not going to stop at every spouse and give a hug to every mother. Well, why am I here? Where are we rushing to? That's how it goes from 90 minutes to four hours. What could be more important? You don't leave that situation. And you have a responsibility to at least, as a first lady, whose kids are not getting shot down, whose husband just goes to the Oval Office and is not on the battlefield.

54:20Let me see you. Let me let you know that I see you. It's like, it just seems like the right thing to do.

54:37you all right yeah yeah yep how are you doing i'm upset what upsets you well you know what of the many things yeah i i i was thinking i want to talk to you about January 6th. Not that one. Okay. It's like, Sam. Sorry, I wrote that joke down. I thought you'd like it.

55:08January 6th, 2017. East Wing. It's your final speech. Your final speech is First Lady. See, I didn't even really tie those two dates together. This is what I'm here for. Okay. This is what I'm here for. Everyone in the room got nervous Crystal's about to get up Talking about the insurrection Relax guys, relax We're talking about something that actually matters to me Which is a speech you give And as you know, my father 30 years, Chicago public school teacher You give a speech to educators And school counselors Speaking to the importance of diversity In education And I wanted you to watch some of that with us Our diversities of faiths and colors and creeds, that is not a threat to who we are.

55:55It makes us who we are.

56:01So the young people here and the young people out there, do not ever let anyone make you feel like you don't matter or like you don't have a place in our American story, because you do. It is our fundamental belief in the power of hope that has allowed us to rise above the voices of doubt and division, of anger and fear that we have faced in our own lives and in the life of this country. Shoot, it's the hope of my folks like my dad, who got up every day, do his job at the city water plant, the hope that one day his kids would go to college and have opportunities he never dreamed of. That's the kind of hope that every single one of us, politicians, parents, preachers, all of us, need to be providing for our young people, because that is what moves this country forward every single day.

57:02So I want to close today by simply saying thank you. Thank you for everything you do for our kids and for our country. Being your First Lady has been the greatest honor of my life. And I hope I've made you proud.

57:19Well, that's misgrievance. Because it's like when you speak with passion, your facial expressions, the words that you use, AI could turn that into anything, right? somebody could interpret that in all kinds of ways. And, you know, that's why we have to be reminded of the good in us. We have to give each other the benefit of the doubt. And if I don't do it as First Lady, if I don't do it in my position, you know, that's when we start picking each other apart, you know, and we start seeing each other as the other. What I look at when I see that speech is not just me, but the faces behind me. You know, not everybody in that group was a Democrat, but they, you know, we know what's right.

58:11We know what we believe. And I know that about people. But if no one is telling you, and they're telling you just the opposite, that that same woman who said that doesn't love her country, and that's all you hear because you weren't there, You know, you don't know her. It's like it's the same thing you feel as a kid. You don't even know me. And you don't think I can do this. You don't think I should go to college. You don't think to ask a question. You don't think to ask the question. You don't think to do the research. You don't think to do your job, to be competent, to be a competent American, to be a competent human.

58:54When you get on that plane, Inauguration Day of 2017, and you take off after eight years, after all you have done, after all your family has given to this country, did you finally have a moment to exhale? I didn't just exhale. I sobbed. It was like walking on that plane and having that door close. It was just like it all came out. It's almost like you could breathe. It's like, phew. Okay. We made it out. It's like, the kids, you got your arms. My husband, you got your head, you know. Everyone packed their laptop. Got Blanky, Tiger. If you left your phone, I'm sorry. We're not going back for it.

59:40We don't need it. We'll get another phone. Do you remember that plane ride? I don't see it completely clearly because so much of what we did was so much. It was so many emotions all the time and managing so much else and everybody, the staffs. So sometimes the specifics where people can, you know, it's a little blurry. But how does it feel to you now? It's relief and pride and exhaustion. You know, it's a little bit of all of it. I mean, I was proud of my husband, proud of the man he showed up as every day, proud of my kids for, you know, putting up with it, having their entire childhood ruined.

1:00:29No, I mean, they they've lived in the White House longer than they've lived anywhere. Imagine trying to grow up with Secret Service. You know, it's hard enough. Trying to have a boyfriend or go to a prom or play on a team at another school or get into college. Yeah, I was proud of my mom, proud of our team, proud of the country still. I was disappointed that we left the way we did. But I still know the country that we led. And it didn't change. People didn't fundamentally change. It's just that we can be easily influenced, especially when we're in pain and struggling. I want to ask some big questions before we go.

1:01:14We talked in the beginning about the janky timeline. Yeah. In 2008, when your husband was elected, you said in an interview for your first cover of Vogue, the writer was Andre Leon Talley. It's really a beautiful story. You said, quote, I was proud as a wife, but amazed as a citizen. I felt a sense of relief, a sense of calm that the country I lived in was the country I thought I lived in. And I read that and I thought, as a citizen, when Donald Trump wins in 2016 and 2024, how did your thinking about the country you live in change? Did it change by the passage of time? I mean, I was deeply, deeply disappointed.

1:02:02But my husband is such a good person to have for context and clarity. And he's right. That outcome had as much to do with people's pain and confusion about where they are in their lives. You know, we haven't completed the assignment of actualizing this democracy. It works and then a lot of times and for a lot of people it doesn't. I've seen it all. I've experienced it all. I know. I know what it's like to be underestimated, underinvested in. And that's happening all over the country more and more as the income gap is widened and more people are falling through the cracks and experiencing worse than what I did growing up.

1:02:54You know, my father had a job his entire life. He was never unemployed. We never worried about our rent. You know, we had health care. He could put us through college. We could afford college even though it was expensive. The basics, more Americans had more of the basics, and that's becoming less and less. And my gosh, when you don't have a chance and you're doing everything you're supposed to do, and that's happening for people of all races and all colors in all parts of this country, in cities and rural counties and on farms and people who are like my dad, that makes you angry and it makes you susceptible to find someone to blame other than the people who are rightfully a part of the problem.

1:03:48And that's true. That anger, I can't look some people in the face and tell them you have no right to be angry or to do something that maybe is against your own interest. That's human nature. Many of the people who voted for my husband twice, twice. And I know that that's how they feel. It's like this isn't about anything other than I'm just, we need something different. They voted for Donald Trump. Yeah. You know? That's a lot of people. So you can't just pigeonhole them and say you just don't care and you're racist or whatever you're thinking. This is an act of I don't know what else to do. I just wish we had more leaders that were figuring out how to do more for the middle class, for the working folks, because those are the folks who are drowning in this economy.

1:04:42It's not me anymore, but I know those folks. And they're good people, and they don't have a way out. And that makes for bad choices. I want to talk about your next chapter because you started the show IMO, this beautiful book, The Look. I want to know, the show, was it inspired in part by the conversations that you were having with your brother and your mother before she passed away? It was almost two years ago now. Why is this the time to do this for you? Well, that was kind of a test case, you know. I mean, it was a fun way to promote becoming. It was a good way for people to hear my mom's voice, which I think is a wise, important voice to have out there.

1:05:32And so our team was so like, wow, that was different. That was special. So that was there. It wasn't like I had a plan to do a podcast because podcasting is just now becoming, you know, it's becoming a thing. And it's a really great way to reach people. So all the stuff that I do now post White House is still, is there a purpose that's useful to somebody? Because I don't have to work. I don't need a job. We've had plenty of attention. As my mom said, I'm not special. I was just I just had things work out and I've learned some things along the way. And now that I'm 60, I know what I know. And even though I was this little cocky, confident four year old, I still sort of like, I don't know.

1:06:23I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know if this is right. I'm going to be clear about it, but I don't know. Maybe that's the vulnerability that Barack saw. It's like, yeah, I think I know, but probably don't. Work in progress. Yeah, I can now sit in my wisdom in a way that I feel comfortable saying, maybe I can help somebody else. That's the mentor in me. I do love when I can make it easier for somebody else. It's like, don't go down that tunnel. I was down there. It's dark. Come back. I'm expecting a phone call from you anytime I'm making a bad decision here. You know me. Well, now you have to ask because I've learned just don't call Sam up.

1:07:05You tell him what you think. As I said, your mother passed away almost two years ago. Marion Robinson. We talked about your father earlier. And I want to know when you think of her and those conversations you had back in Hawaii before she passed away. How do you hold those now? I should also add I was rewatching the documentary. and your mother is so funny. Like, I just kept dying laughing. She could have been school counselors, you said. She could have maybe done stand-up comedy. I don't know. She was just so fucking funny. Yeah. And so before we leave, I want us to hold the story that she would tell that made you laugh and also that conversation that you had with her on the couch.

1:07:52Yeah, my mother, I had the pleasure. My mom got sick, had an issue that was going to eventually kill her. And she was with us in Hawaii for Christmas like she always was. And she had to be hospitalized. And she was just getting older and frailer. And every time she had this issue, she couldn't eat. She had to have a feeding tube. And as the doctor said that, you know, she just wouldn't bounce back. And you just never know whether she wouldn't. And this was a pretty serious one. She was in the hospital for a couple of weeks. and then she got better and got home. And I had the privilege of nursing her, which she hated, you know.

1:08:32She hated her being dependent on us and us, she feeling like she was a burden. She was a proud person. She was so proud. And she was so proud of the fact that she could let us live our lives because she raised us to be independent and not somebody that was worrying about their mother. But my mom was also pragmatic. She was preparing us for her death since we were 10 because she believed that she didn't want little kids feeling like they couldn't go on if something happened to their parents. And she was like, you'll be fine. You know, I don't want all this morning. People die. That's the way it is.

1:09:07Your mother's going to die one day. And we're like, but we're 10, mom. Do we really have to face this now? So she's getting us ready. So. And was she ready? This was the conversation on the couch because we were sitting there and And she knew how sick she was, but she was improving enough. But we were sitting there watching some court show or, you know, Below Deck, which she loved. She loved Below Deck. She just couldn't understand why they couldn't get along on that boat. I was like, yeah, Mom, you're right. People are crazy. They're getting paid to knock it along. But she got quiet, and I was like, how are you feeling?

1:09:52She says good. And she said, that was fast. I said, well, what are you talking about? She said life. She said life was fast. I didn't say anything because I knew what she was saying. It was like, as ready as she was, life is freaking fast. because when she got sick that time, my mom was working out. She worked out at 87. She got on at 86. She got on a treadmill every day. She did her exercises. She smoked. She smoked and ate what she wanted. Look, we can't be perfect. Can't be perfect. And she wasn't trying either. She was like, don't talk to me about smoking. She's like, I'm here, you know. I'd be happy to die.

1:10:36She's like, I don't want to live forever. She's earned it. She's earned it. But she had a happy life. And she loved us and she loved to be with people. And I think when you get to that point, if you're fortunate enough to have a good life, are you ever really ready if things are great? But it made me think and be reminded how short life is. That you get to a certain age and things just go really fast. and that it made me think about being very mindful about how I spend the rest of this 20 summers or 30 summers or however many more I'm blessed to have and to make sure that now I'm doing good things, but I'm doing things that mean something to me at its very core.

1:11:31Not just serving others, not just doing the right thing. But what do I want? And that conversation, you know, sort of woke me up. It's similar to the revelation you had when your friend passed away, when your father passed. Yeah. And you met Barack and you went, this can't be all there is. Yeah. I have to do something else. And you're having it in another way in this third act. And my last thing for us, you know, when you talk about time like that, I have this photo and I wondered if you could talk about this moment for us because I bet in some ways that happened just the other day. They both look like babies, Barack and my mom.

1:12:20This is in the hotel room that we went to in Chicago the night that Barack was elected president. And this was right at the time that the news officially, even though we knew earlier in the evening that the numbers were looking good. CNN breaking news. Exactly. We project he now has enough electoral votes, more than 270. Has that scary music that comes on? It's just like in his face, you know, pops in large, you know, and it's surreal because it's like, is that Barack on the TV as president of the United States of America? It really was. And I was probably sitting over here, sitting to the to the left.

1:13:04And I'm sure my mom has that look like, well, I'll be damn. This boy did it. I can't believe it. he is actually going to be the president of the United States. Oh, my God. How is he going to manage it? Is he going to be okay? And I think that sense in Barack of, I'm sure he's thinking, oh, my God, what have I gotten my mother-in-law into, this lovely Leave it to Beaver family? I've just blown it up. I've just lit a match under this lovely family. Let me grab her hand, because we're going to need you to move with us, Mom. And she did. She did. I heard she did even her own laundry. Oh, my God. My mother, she was like, there's no need for you to do my laundry.

1:13:56I've been doing my laundry for years. She wouldn't even eat dinner with us, only on special occasions because she felt like, you all need time to be a family. You don't need me sitting there. The girls may want to talk to you about it. So she always did her dinners, unless we were doing Thanksgiving or birthday or whatever. She treated her third floor like she was on 74th and Euclid and we were in our house. She was like, I'll come by when you need me. She was there every evening when I came home because she was there to meet the kids. And then she'd go up to her little apartment upstairs. There was no wood partition this time.

1:14:30No wood partition. Pretty big house. When you look at this photo, when I look at this photo, we started this conversation with the janky timeline discourse. Obviously, that was a less janky time. I think we can agree. And I wondered, you and your husband have long subscribed to this idea that, quote, we don't fix things in a lifetime. That incremental progress is about as good as we can hope for. And of course, when I hear that, I think of Dr. King's famous line, the arc of the moral universe is long. But it bends towards justice. Yes. And I have to say, as we sit here in this moment, and I'm looking at this photo and I'm looking at you, which is a surreal experience for a kid who grew up in Chicago.

1:15:17But as we sit here in this moment in America and what's going on right now, I'm wondering, after all you and your family have given, after all you've done in the White House and out, what if the arc of the moral universe does not bend toward justice, but breaks. It's never broken before. Why would this be any different? You know, we've been through worse. I mean, we've been through jankier times, you know, a lot of a lot of really janky, painful times in the history of humanity, in the history of this country. Nah, you know, I look at this picture. My husband reminds me that happened. That happened here.

1:16:04And a lot of people, more people than who elected this person, this current president, voted for him. So it will bend, you know, it might bend a long time, but we won't break it. God might break it. Mother Nature might break it. And we will be indirectly responsible for it. But humanity, we see with any disaster, the world keeps moving on. Humans are the ones that, you know, can't adapt, but we often do adapt. So you still believe in the promise and hope of this photo? It's our responsibility to believe. We're the older generation. If you don't believe, then you stop working. You say, oh, oh, well, what's the point?

1:16:51And who suffers but children who have no choice to work. They don't have. We're working for them, just like Nelson Mandela. You know, Nelson Mandela was in prison for most of his life and died before he saw the full fruits of his labor, and he never got cynical because he knew that his sacrifice was not about him, and that's what we have to understand. The people in the civil rights movement, the people who sat and fought for women's equality who died over gay rights, they didn't experience the fruits of their work because it wasn't for us. It's for them. It's for our kids and our grandkids. That's what our parents did for us.

1:17:32My mother did not have the opportunities that I had. My father didn't. But they didn't stop. They didn't stop raising us. They didn't stop voting. They didn't stop reaching for better. They didn't get so cynical that they just gave up. So if we do that, then we're spoiled. And we're not building the muscle for change. So, yeah, we had eight years of wonderful and hard times. But we didn't do that for me and Barack. This isn't about us. It's about the next generation. My last question, as we sit here, you're somehow in your 60s. I don't know how. There's no chance I look half as good as you when I'm 60.

1:18:19Thank you. Tell me what's precious to you in this moment. Oh, always, always children. I'm like my mother. I love kids. I love young people. You know, they are pure. They come here clear, clean, hopeful, positive. We can either lift them up or we can smash them down. But if we lift them up, boy, wow, it's beautiful. It's a beautiful thing to experience and to watch. I started by saying, why am I good? Because I raised these really two good, amazing kids. And I remember when they were babies and they were being formed. And here's the thing. I don't assume that I am special, that my girls are special.

1:19:02They're special to me, but they're still human. All kids are like them. They're all the same. I don't care what part of the country, the world they're in. They're all precious. This is what your mom said. Yeah, I believe that. And I've seen it. I got to travel the world. I see all these beautiful, bright kids in Africa and India and Asia, all with the same hope, the same possibility, the same fire that was in me. I think it's a precious thing to nurture. And if we're thinking in that way, we make different choices. We don't choose things for us today. We choose them for them. And I think we can do a better job of making choices for them.

1:19:41We can do so much better than we're doing now. And, you know, I'll keep working for that as much as I can until I get a little tired. Me too. Yeah. These conversations are important. Please keep it up. Hey, you tell me. I work for you now, so it sounds great. Get to work. Michelle Obama, thank you. Thank you, Sam. Okay. Way to go. Was that all right? That was beautiful.

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