(gentle music)
Downloaded from YTS.MX
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- My question, North Carolina, is can we do this?
(crowd cheering)
Can we do this?
(crowd cheering)
Can we do this?
- [Crowd] Yes we can!
- [Michelle] Can we do this?
- [Crowd] Yes we can!
- Just imagine how many of our kids we could help.
Imagine how many lives we would transform.
And like anything, this is not gonna be easy,
and it will not happen overnight.
Be determined, be hopeful, be empowered.
I was fortunate enough to live in a household
where we didn't have much by way of resources.
My parents didn't get to go to college,
but that didn't mean that they weren't intelligent.
My parents saw this flame in me.
That flame that would challenge my Aunt Robbie
and speak up for myself.
They found a way to keep that flame lit.
I'm not gonna be here forever
and neither are any of you.
And I wanna make sure that the work that we've begun
and the progress we've made will continue,
not just for the length of this administration
but until the problem is solved.
I have seen firsthand that being president
doesn't change who you are.
No, it reveals who you are.
(audience applauding)
- I love that the Queen put her arm around Michelle.
And I believe that she said,
"You know, I never thought I would see this."
- I'm more the storyteller,
and, for me, I wanted this book
to read like a story because I wanted people,
particularly young people, to just get lost in the journey.
(gentle music)
- [Narrator] Michelle Obama is now a bestselling author
and a Grammy winner, thanks to her book, "Becoming,"
which is now the bestselling memoir ever,
along with the audio book.
Now both Malia and Sasha
are both full-time college students,
Michelle and Barack are officially empty nesters,
but that doesn't mean they are settling down by any means.
In an ambitious deal with Netflix,
the world-renowned couple are producing
seven documentary films.
Their new production company, Higher Ground Productions,
aims to be touching on issues of race and class,
democracy and civil rights and much more.
The first of those seven, titled "American Factory,"
even managed to clinch an Oscar nod
at the 2020 Academy Awards.
Their powerful voices still sound out clear
with something to say and something that
needs to be heard.
Obama was also asked to make a speech
at John McCain's funeral, his opponent
in the 2008 presidency race.
He had been hand-picked by Senator McCain
to speak at the funeral alongside George W. Bush.
- Opinionated as ever,
fiercely devoted to his friends
and, most of all, to his family.
It showed his irreverence, his sense of humor,
a little bit of a mischievous streak.
After all, what better way to get a last laugh
than to make George and I say nice things about him
to a national audience?
(audience laughing)
And most of all, it showed a largeness of spirit,
an ability to see past differences
in search of common ground.
- [Narrator] Obama used this opportunity to speak
out against the status of the current political climate.
Though Trump was never mentioned,
McCain had said that Obama did understand
that some principles transcend politics,
some values transcend party.
Still, despite Michelle Obama's monumental success,
she has still made it very clear
that she will never lose sight
of where she came from, the South Side of Chicago.
(gentle guitar music)
- Well, I was fortunate enough to live
in a household where we didn't have much
by way of resources.
My father was a working class, blue collar guy.
My parents didn't get to go to college.
I think each of them maybe spent
a couple of semesters at a community college,
but life hit them, and they had to work.
But that didn't mean
that they weren't intelligent, highly intelligent.
And that's often the mistake that we make.
We assume that working class folks
are not highly gifted in their own right,
when a lotta times your station in life
is limited by the circumstances that you find yourself in.
We were expected to be excellent.
And it wasn't just my mother and father.
We grew up with a very big extended family.
We lived all within a five-block radius.
I talk about how each of the children
lived with an elder of some sort.
We grew up a Great-Aunt Robbie,
who was a strict task master, a piano teacher.
And that was the sound of striving
that I describe, because she taught piano
to the neighborhood kids downstairs.
And I would hear all that effort coming up,
all those young people trying to please
my Aunt Robbie because she was very clear
about what she expected.
And she expected it not just from her students
but from their parents.
I always wanted to keep up with others.
So striving happened every day.
But I could also challenge that,
and that's one of the stories I tell.
I was four years old when I started playing
the piano with Aunt Robbie,
and she was kind of a crank.
(audience laughing)
She had a particular way of wanting to teach piano.
And I learned by ear, because I was upstairs,
I learned the scales because I heard the music,
and when I would go down,
I'd start to play it.
So I could progress faster in the music book
than she wanted me to, which she didn't like.
And we would battle it out.
At four years old, I was like why can't I go faster?
Why do I have to play the songs in your order?
She was my first combatant,
and she defeated me.
(audience laughing)
So I grew up with that kind of energy.
You had to speak proper English,
and you weren't allowed to use slang.
Reading was important.
And that was the beauty of the energy in my family.
My mother said, would always tell me,
"I'm raising adults.
"I'm not raising babies."
Her philosophy was that we could understand
a lot if she took the time to explain it.
So it was never speak only when spoken to.
She encouraged us to let our voices be heard.
(gentle music)
But one of the things that my parents
believed was that my voice was relevant
and my opinions were meaningful
and my anger and frustration was real.
And that's something that's important
for parents of any socio-economic background to realize.
That was the gift that she gave me.
I say that my parents saw this flame in me,
that flame that would challenge my Aunt Robbie
and speak up for myself.
And instead of doing what we often do
to girls who are feisty, which is try to put
that flame out, to douse it ever just so
because we're worried about them not
being ladylike or being bossy,
they found a way to keep that flame lit
because they knew I'd need it later on.
And to have that flame lit in a girl
means that you have to value her voice
and let her speak and learn how to use
it with boundaries. - Amen.
(audience applauding)
- My father, classic example, he believed
in real, practical lessons.
I don't write about this, but I remember
there was a time that my brother wondered
whether we were rich.
And instead of my father saying no, you're nuts.
Look around, we live in a little bitty house
in a little bitty neighborhood.
What he did was, he took his paycheck
at the end of the month and cashed it all in ones.
And then he sat us down with every bill
that he had to pay, and he put money
on top of each bill, the rent, the gas,
the car note, groceries.
- [Narrator] Fraser Robinson suffered
from multiple sclerosis, a debilitating illness
that took a serious toll on his life.
When she lost her father to the illness in 1991,
it rocked Michelle's world.
She called him the hole in her heart.
- Her family was like Beaver Cleaver,
that it was so wholesome, just they earned
a little bit less money.
But this really was an important foundation for her.
She really loves family, loves being around family.
Family is really important to her.
And that really shined through.
- I didn't want to let my parents down,
so I worked hard in school.
I read everything I could get my hands on.
I did my absolute very best on every single assignment.
I did everything in my power
to be a good student.
I dreamed of one day going to one
of the best universities in America.
But despite my efforts, there were still people
in my life who told me that I was setting
my sights too high.
That a girl like me couldn't get into an elite university.
It was like these folks were tryin'
to put me in a little box,
a box that fit their constrained expectations of me.
And after a while, I started to wonder,
well, maybe I was dreamin' too big.
What if these folks were right?
See, back then, I didn't know what my future held.
I didn't know that I'd be accepted
to a top university.
I didn't know that I'd go on to get a law degree
and become an NGO director and a hospital executive
and eventually first lady of the United States.
(gentle music)
- [Narrator] She aimed high,
applying at Princeton University,
where she was accepted and began her studies in 1981.
Four years later, she graduated with honors,
but Michelle didn't stop there.
She would go on to study and earn a degree
from Harvard Law School in 1988.
- Michelle went on to Princeton,
and everyone knows, of course, after that
she went to Harvard Law School.
And she rose to the absolute top of her field.
One of the other things that comes out
in the book that's very compelling
is that she hated being a lawyer.
She'd gone to Harvard Law,
she was at the top of her game.
She was at a law firm, very prestigious,
and she was doing all these court documents
day in, day out.
And she said to her mom, "I hate it.
"I hate being a lawyer."
And her mom actually tried to talk her
into staying as a lawyer because of how much
money she was making.
It was an incredible amount of money.
And she said, "Okay, make your money,
"and later do something you love
"because what an amazing opportunity."
But for Michelle, she realized that she
had to follow her passion, which was helping people.
It wasn't producing court documents.
And, of course, we all know what happened.
(upbeat music)
- If I worried about who liked me
and who thought I was cute when I was your age,
I wouldn't be married to the president
of the United States today.
(crowd cheering)
Sorry.
- [Woman] That's amazing!
That's so great!
- [Narrator] In August of 1989, Michelle LaVaughn Robinson
was working as an associate in the Chicago
law firm Sidley & Austin when she was assigned
to mentor a summer intern.
That summer intern was Barack Hussein Obama.
Barack landed the internship off the back
of his exceptional work as a law student
at Harvard University.
In her book "Becoming," Michelle expresses
that the glowing praise that surrounded
the confident young Barack seemed at odds
with his easygoing attitude.
He was like no one she had ever met.
Despite a fluttering interest
in this cool cat from Hawaii,
Michelle, being career focused, refused to date.
It's safe to say that Barack had other ideas.
- He was definitely pursuing her,
and she had her reservations.
And eventually, he won her over.
- [Narrator] Famously, the couple's first kiss
is commemorated at 53rd and South Dorchester in Chicago.
A quaint plaque on a rock reads,
"On our first date, I treated her to the finest
"Baskin-Robbins had to offer,
"our dinner table doubling as the curb.
"I kissed her, and it tasted like chocolate."
(rock music)
♪ G-G-Give it up ♪
♪ Give it up to me, baby ♪
♪ You got to give it up ♪
♪ Won't you gimme your sweet love ♪
♪ Oh, yeah, baby ♪
♪ Gimme that love ♪
♪ You gotta gotta gotta give it up ♪
♪ Baby ♪
- She's very candid in her book
about the fact that it wasn't love at first sight.
That he had this distinct whiff of geekiness about him.
And she saw him as being amazing and great
but not dating, marriage material.
I think he kinda grew on her but rather quickly
because once they actually did have
their first date, Michelle says it was
almost immediate that she knew
that this was gonna be something pretty incredible.
(gentle music)
One of the biggest revelations in Michelle's book "Becoming"
is her own painful struggle to have children.
We find out that Michelle had a very painful miscarriage
prior to having her daughters
and then was forced to rely on IVF
for the successful conception
of her two girls, Malia and Sasha.
This was something she writes about in really
breathtaking detail.
She talks about the loneliness of injecting
herself at nine o'clock at night somewhere
with the hormones she needed.
How the fact that Barack was often gone
or traveling was difficult as she was
contemplating the IVF and doing the IVF.
She's very honest about it
and very candid about her own struggles
to have her girls.
And this is something we never knew before.
Michelle is very honest in her book "Becoming"
about her and Barack's marital difficulties.
She doesn't paint a perfect picture of their marriage.
In fact, she actually said in an interview
with Oprah Winfrey for "Harper's Bazaar" that
"Yes, I know people see us as #relationship goals,
"but it's not as picture-perfect as it may seem."
I think for Michelle, it was important to paint
a more accurate, realistic picture
of the fact that you have two very intelligent,
very driven, very ambitious people who are trying
to find a way to have a successful partnership and marriage.
One of the things Michelle talks about is
her way of loving and her feeling of security
was different than Barack's.
Barack didn't grow up near his mother.
He was raised by his grandparents.
And yet he knew his mother loved him very much.
For Michelle, she wanted him present.
She wanted her husband around her.
That's how she felt loved and secure.
But for Barack, it didn't need to be that way.
So I think Michelle's very honest and open
about the fact that she and Barack had
to find a way to love each other
and also be true to themselves.
And she openly talks about the fact
that the pair underwent couples counseling
shortly after the birth of their daughters.
- Barack Obama didn't get
into Columbia University right away.
He actually started off and went to Occidental College
in the U.S. in California.
And then he transferred into Columbia University,
an Ivy League school, but from there on,
his career really soared.
He would eventually get a law degree
from Harvard Law, and he would be one
of the editors, the first African American editor
of the "Harvard Law Review."
Then he continued to engage in community activity
in the state of Illinois, in Chicago.
And from there on, he became an Illinois
state senator for eight years.
He gained some experience in the Illinois
state senate, and then this propelled him
to the national stage when he would
become a U.S. senator in 2004.
He lived a very solitary life when he was in DC,
and he didn't uproot his family to be there.
But his greatest achievements weren't
gonna be in the Senate.
He probably knew that.
He had the level of fame that really no other
senator had achieved at that point
given what he had actually accomplished.
- We are all connected, as a people,
that all of us share something.
That these children right here lined up,
waiting for the Red Hot Chili Peppers,
- [Children] Yeah! - yeah, that I've got
an investment in them
even though they're not my children.
Just like you have an investment
in the children in the South Side of Chicago
who are tryin' to figure out
whether they've got a decent education
(audience applauding) And it's that idea
that we are all connected.
That I am my brother's keeper.
I am my sister's keeper.
That we have a set of mutual obligations towards
each other that express themselves not only
in our families, not only in our communities,
not only in our places of worship
but also in our government.
- The Obamas were a breath of fresh air, literally.
And even people who were die-hard Republicans,
diametrically opposed to every single
policy position, like my mother,
loved them because, she said, "This is what we need.
"We need this kind of breath of fresh air.
"We need this kind of new energy
"to be brought into the White House."
I think it was difficult for Michelle
to come to terms with the fact that Barack
wanted a political career.
She's very civic-minded, but she hates politics.
And so she really didn't want to get
into any kind of career where there would be mudslinging
and all the different things that come with it.
But, as always, she wanted to support Barack
and whatever aspirations that he had.
I think she understood that he had aspirations
for greatness and was capable of achieving
these types of things.
And that he's sort of a once-in-a-lifetime type of person.
A type of candidate that the world
had never seen before,
definitely the U.S. had never seen before,
and that she was gonna need to support him.
And that that didn't necessarily mean
that she had to let go of her own ambitions.
It just meant that she needed to be side-by-side with him
and supporting him all along the way.
I'm sure she was one of his biggest fans
but also one of the people that he trusted
the most in terms of offering him advice.
- Can we do this?
(crowd cheering)
Can we do this?
(crowd cheering)
Can we do this?
- [Crowd] Yes we can!
- Can we do this?
- [Crowd] Yes we can!
Yes we can!
- And North Carolina, who is that candidate?
(crowd cheering)
I-I I didn't hear you.
- [Crowd] Obama!
- And as I was lookin' at her, I thought,
she could be any one of us.
She's a great mother.
She's got a great education.
She's about all the values that women need to strive for.
So I think she'll make a perfect first lady.
(upbeat music)
- [Narrator] As Barack Obama's fight for the 2008
presidential election began, the eyes of the American
public turned toward their perspective first lady.
- When she was originally campaigning with Barack in 2008,
what's impossible to think of now
is that she was thought of as a liability
because of several things that she had said.
She was being interviewed by reporters
in early 2008, and she had mentioned
"This is the first time in my adult life
"that I am proud to be an American."
And this really didn't play well.
People didn't like the fact that she was
emphasizing race too much.
Then her dissertation was published
when she was a student, which emphasized how
difficult it would be to be an African American
in a white university.
That also didn't play over very well.
And there were caricatures of her
as this angry black woman who was militant
and was overly focusing on race.
And they decided that they were basically
gonna give her a complete makeover,
a complete image makeover because they felt
that she was coming across as too forceful.
But that's part of who she was.
If she wanted to defend her husband,
you know, she's a Harvard-educated lawyer,
she would do it in a forceful and efficient
and effective manner.
But that wasn't playing across well
given some of the other events that were
going on at that time.
So they gave her this big image makeover,
which they unveiled at the Democratic Convention
in August of 2008.
And it was really successful.
- As I tuck that little girl in and her little sister
into bed at night, you see, I think about how
one day, they'll have families of their own
and how one day, they and your sons and daughters
will tell their own children about what we did
together in this election.
(audience cheering)
They'll tell them
they'll tell them how this time
we listened to our hopes instead of our fears.
- In her speech, and she was a great speaker,
just as Barack is, she mentioned family quite a bit.
She really emphasized her maternal role,
and she exuded a lot of warmth.
And it was really natural, this warmth.
- How this time in this great country,
where a girl from the South Side of Chicago
can go to college and law school
and the son of a single mother from Hawaii
can go all the way to the White House
(crowd cheering)
that we committed ourselves.
- The world goes into it.
And so this is really looking at things
from hair to clothes to diction.
People don't wake up and become Michelle Obamas.
That takes time, that take effort,
and that takes a mighty great team as well,
to put you together.
- Now you know why I asked her out
so many times (audience laughing)
even though she said no.
You want a persistent president.
(gentle music)
- [Narrator] Michelle, Malia and Sasha traveled
the length of the country during what was
a grueling campaign schedule.
Delivering speeches, hosting fundraisers,
Michelle did her part to support Barack.
But it wasn't without its challenges.
- The campaign experience was draining
for all of Barack Obama's family.
They were constantly on the road
and having to deal with raising kids on the road.
Michelle Obama was having to give a lot of speeches.
And this kinda carried on into the eight years
that she was in office.
She was exhausted.
He talked about how she was looking forward
to being able to do so many things
that she couldn't do before.
It was something that she really gave up a lot
in order to support him and for this goal
of achieving something for the greater good.
I think she really felt that this was something
that she needed to chip in on
and be supportive of, not because she really
wanted to do it, that this would've been
her first choice, but she just felt
it was the right thing to do.
(gentle music)
I think she knew that everything,
starting from the campaign to the way
she adjusted her image for the campaign
to the way she adjusted her image
to be this new type of first lady,
all of this stuff was a huge sacrifice to her.
This wouldn't have been her choice.
This wouldn't have been what she wanted to do.
She didn't have these types of political aspirations.
But I think she saw this as all part
of something that needed to be achieved
just for the greater good of U.S. society,
political culture.
The country at this time needed optimism
and needed these types of policies.
The actual night itself, there was quite
a bit of optimism because Obama was going
into the night with a lead in the polls by 5% to 10%.
And there was a feeling that his campaign
had been very dynamic and that he was
likely to flip some states.
So in the end, you had him winning 338 electoral votes,
winning 52% of the vote,
and he flipped seven states that had
been previously in the hands of Republicans.
And that was significant.
I think some of the most significant wins
were in the Rust Belt, namely Ohio,
but also Virginia, of course, North Carolina and Florida.
These wins came out earlier in the night,
and it became clear he was going to be the winner.
But at election night, the electoral victory was,
for many people, one of the greatest moments for them.
They probably agreed with what Michelle Obama
had said earlier that year that it was
a moment where Americans felt proud.
It was definitely a moment for minorities,
the African American community, even the Hispanic community,
that they felt that they had achieved something.
(audience applauding)
It was just one of the most impressive things
that the U.S. had accomplished.
- Michelle Obama's famous for a lot of things,
not the least of which is her enviable arms.
One of the things we saw from her
as first lady was the first time
a first lady started wearing high street brands.
She was wearing J. Crew.
She was wearing other brands which were very mainstream.
It wasn't like Nancy Reagan
in her Oscar de la Renta all the time.
She was mixing and matching designer labels
with high street mainstream brands,
which is what, of course, most women do.
We very famously saw her supporting J. Crew
from the very beginning, which is a very
quintessentially American brand,
and she wore a lot of sleeveless tops.
Of course, the whole world took notice
of the fact that she had such great arms.
Michelle Obama's arms, in fact, were requested
of plastic surgeons around the land
by women who wanted to emulate their beauty, really.
(upbeat music)
Michelle Obama has a great wardrobe,
and the fact that she's 5'11", has incredible height
and stature in which to show it off.
She took risks in terms of fashion.
She wore outfits that were a bit sexy and glamorous.
She wore Versace very famously
and looked very slinky and straightened her hair.
She was not afraid to take risks with fashion,
and she loves fashion, and it shows.
- Ladies and gentlemen, the first lady
of the United States, Michelle Obama.
(audience cheering)
- I think what a lot of people who know
Michelle Obama say about her is she's hilarious.
She has a great sense of humor,
and she's really funny.
One of the great dynamics between Michelle
and her husband is there's a friendly competitiveness.
They are famously competitive with each other.
A friend of mine who was actually
at the 2004 convention when Barack's keynote speech
thrust him into the national spotlight,
just before he went on stage,
Michelle gave him a big hug
and said, "Don't screw it up, buddy."
So Michelle has a very famously competitive,
very funny competitive relationship with her husband.
In her book "Becoming," it's really remarkable
how much shade she throws at her husband,
where she talks about his whiff of geekiness
on their date and other things
that make him seem very human.
- I think for Barack and Michelle's children,
Sasha and Malia, growing up in the White House
probably wasn't easy.
They had some advice from the previous
first children, the Bush twins, Jenna and Barbara Bush.
They actually took them under their wing
and gave them a lot of helpful advice.
But one of the things that made it easier for them
was that they had such a strong family.
They had their grandmother living with them.
They had their mother ensuring that they're able
to live as normally as possible.
And something that is notable about those
eight years for them was that there
was never anything negatively reported on them, ever.
It could be the media was exercising some caution there.
But even since they have
now become younger adults and are no longer
living in the White House,
they have earned a reputation for just being
really solid, well-behaved girls
that have been really raised well.
And a lot of this has been attributed
to the work that Michelle had done
in the White House but also Michelle and Barack
as a family just ensuring that they
had some level of stability and normalcy
in spite of the fact that they were living
in very abnormal conditions.
(gentle music)
- Earlier today, as you heard, Malia and Sasha and I
visited the Long Room at Trinity College.
As you know, I don't know if many of you have been there.
It's like Hogwarts,
(audience laughing) as Sasha pointed out.
It's a huge room with shelf after shelf full of books,
beautiful place, and I hope that all of you
aspire to go there, if not study there.
But just to go and experience what it's
like to be surrounded by so much history
and so much power.
And the girls had the chance to explore
those shelves and trace their Irish lineage,
which was a very powerful thing
to find out that these girls that were born
on the South Side of Chicago can trace
their roots back here to Ireland,
way back to the 1600s.
That was very powerful for me as their mother,
and hopefully it will be something that they
cherish for the rest of their lives.
- One of the things that Michelle
is best known for is the fact
that she's an incredible public speaker,
and some say that she's even better
or let's say as good as her very famous husband.
Michelle and Barack were actually quite
competitive about their speeches.
When Michelle was prepping to give her 2016
Democratic Convention speech,
which is the very famous one where she says,
"When they go low, we go high."
Barack heard her in one of the rehearsals
and ended up going back to his notes
to work a bit harder to make sure
he was as good or better than his wife.
Michelle is a famously good public speaker.
She has great presence,
she has great authority,
and at the same time, she manages to be
interesting and relatable.
It's one of her best skills.
(crowd cheering)
- You know, it's hard to believe
that it as been eight years since I first
came to this convention to talk with you
about why I thought my husband should be president.
(crowd cheering)
Remember how I told you about his character and conviction,
his decency and his grace.
The traits that we've seen every day
that he served our country in the White House.
(crowd cheering)
I also told you about our daughters,
how they are the heart of our hearts,
the center of our world.
And during our time in the White House,
we've had the joy of watching them grow
from bubbly little girls into poised young women,
a journey that started soon after we arrived in Washington
when they set off for their first day
at their new school.
I will never forget that winter morning
as I watched our girls, just seven and 10 years old,
pile into those black SUVs with all those
big men with guns.
(audience murmurs)
And I saw their little faces pressed
up against the window, and the only thing
I could think was what have we done?
(audience laughing)
See, because at that moment, I realized
that our time in the White House would form
the foundation for who they would become.
And how well we managed this experience
could truly make or break them.
That is what Barack and I think about every day
as we try to guide and protect our girls
through the challenges of this
unusual life in the spotlight.
- Barack and Michelle Obama had an excellent
relationship throughout the presidency.
Any relationship is gonna be tested
when you're dealing with high levels of stress.
And so it's not to say that their
relationship didn't experience some bumps
and some tense discussions along the way.
And they've admitted that.
But they see themselves as a team.
They see themselves as much stronger together
than apart, and they really respect each other.
They see each other as equals.
I think during the entire presidency,
they were able to weather a lot of storms,
difficult storms that he faced just being president,
all the attacks he faced.
They were able to weather this together,
and their relationship is probably stronger as a result.
But it's really one of the few
political marriages that was just completely scandal free,
that was really about a deep love
that they shared for one another
that wasn't really about a marriage
of political convenience.
And both Republicans and Democrats alike
would have to acknowledge that this
was a very solid relationship.
It was a model relationship
and one that a lot of other people could learn from.
- Michelle Obama is famously tactile
and warm, and we've seen that over and over again.
But in 2009 at the G2 Summit, there was a faux pas
heard round the world when Michelle actually
put her arm around Queen Elizabeth.
Everyone was shocked, because this is
a firm break with royal protocol.
Michelle and the Queen had actually been
having a bit of a giggle because they were
both talking about how uncomfortable their shoes are.
Queen Elizabeth apparently complimented
Michelle on her Jimmy Choos,
and Michelle confided that they were
incredibly uncomfortable.
And Queen Elizabeth said apparently hers were as well.
And they had a bit of a laugh,
and Michelle put her arm around the Queen,
which caused gasps which could be heard around the world.
- I love that the Queen put her arm around Michelle.
And I believe that she said, "You know, I never thought
"I would see this, so you know what, hey."
I loved it.
I know people got crazy.
She touched the Queen!
But she didn't melt.
She didn't disappear, you know.
Now, I'm sure she doesn't want a whole bunch
of people touching her,
'cause I don't want a whole bunch
of people touching me, okay?
So I figure that the protocol does not change,
but every now and then, I think something happens
where she goes, "I'm gonna mark this occasion.
"I'm gonna mark this and no one
"will ever forget this."
I just wanted to tip my dread to her.
I just thought it was the most marvelous thing I'd seen.
- The thing is, Queen Elizabeth seemed to like it.
There was this stage later on
where Queen Elizabeth invited Michelle
to sit in the back of her Range Rover with her
on the way somewhere.
And when Michelle hesitated,
the Queen said to Michelle,
"Have they warned you that you can't do this?"
And when she said yes,
the Queen said, "Rubbish, you can sit wherever you want."
So it seems like, despite the fact
that everyone in the world freaked out
that Michelle put her arm around Queen Elizabeth,
Queen Elizabeth was, in fact, charmed,
very much so, by Michelle Obama.
We saw the very famous friendship that developed
between Michelle Obama and George W. Bush,
a very unlikely pairing.
But what happened was, Michelle was invariably
seated by the former President George W. Bush
at funerals, public events, and they got to become friendly.
George Bush very famously gave Michelle Obama
a cough drop, which was at John McCain's funeral,
and everybody saw that.
Actually, Michelle said it was an old cough drop.
It had been there a long time
in the bottom of Laura's purse.
But she took it, and they became really firm friends.
There's a lot of photographs of them at events
where she has her arms around him, embracing him.
And she has said, "I don't agree with him
"on everything, but I have so much love for this man."
George W. Bush has said, "She likes my sense of humor,
"and anyone who likes my sense of humor,
"I like them immediately."
I think one of the things Michelle has done
so beautifully is to show that friendship
and warmth does not have to stop
when you come to different political views.
The red and blues, the Republicans and the Democrats,
it doesn't have to be a barrier
to good conversation and good will and good relations.
And her friendship with George W. Bush
has really embodied that.
Michelle Obama has said over and over again,
"I can't ask something of our children,
"of our future generation, that I don't embody myself."
This has fed into the way she acts
all the time when it comes to campaign tactics,
when it comes to personal relationships,
and when it comes to the way that she
speaks about her political opponents.
(gentle music)
- [Narrator] It was clear to the world
each and every day that the Obama administration
held office that the Obamas, as the first family,
shared an unparalleled love and closeness.
- Michelle Obama's incredibly close to her mother.
She always admired her mother.
Her mother was always there for her,
at home cooking every meal.
She had a really, really idyllic upbringing.
And this close-knit family, in some ways,
it was something that Barack Obama lacked
because his parents had split up
and he moved around quite a bit.
But I think that the decision for Michelle's mom
to move into the White House with them illustrates
how close they really are,
how much Michelle relies on her mom
to support her and to just be there
for their daughters and to provide
the family a foundation and some normalcy.
The media even nicknamed her the first grandmother.
I think some families, having your mother-in-law
live with you wouldn't be ideal,
but you really don't understand how close
this family is and how supportive
she is to their daughters but also to Barack and Michelle.
- And I've seen it again and again and again
that what our parents told us really is true
that if we get our education, we can do anything.
We can lift up ourselves to heights
we could never imagine.
We can pay forward all of the love and support
that our families have poured into us,
and we can truly be builders of a new day.
That is your work.
- One of the things Michelle did,
which was unusual, was that shortly
after she moved into the White House
with her girls, she moved her mother in.
Marian Shields Robinson became the first grandmother
of the White House.
For Michelle, she knew she was gonna be
unavailable to her girls sometimes,
whether she was accompanying Barack
on a trip overseas or she had meetings,
and she wanted someone she knew and trusted
to help her raise her daughters.
As busy as she got, she never took her eye
off the ball when it came to raising Malia and Sasha.
I think moving her mother in
was something that families do,
but it's not typically something
that first families do.
- Michelle.
(crowd cheering)
Michelle LaVaughn Robinson, girl of the South Side.
(crowd cheering)
For the past 25 years, you have not only been
my wife and mother of my children,
you have been my best friend.
(audience applauding)
You took on a role you didn't ask for,
and you made it your own with grace
and with grit and with style
and good humor. (audience cheering)
(gentle music)
You made the White House a place that belongs to everybody.
And a new generation sets its sights higher
because it has you as a role model.
(audience cheering)
You have made me proud.
And you have made the country proud.
(audience applauding)
- Hello, everyone, and may I say
for the last time officially,
welcome to the White House.
Our glorious diversity, our diversity
of faiths and colors and creeds,
that is not a threat to who we are.
It makes us who we are.
So don't be afraid.
You hear me?
Young people, don't be afraid.
Be focused.
Be determined.
Be hopeful.
Be empowered.
Empower yourselves with a good education.
Then get out there and use that education
to build a country worthy of your boundless promise.
Lead by example with hope, never fear.
- [Interviewer] If Michelle Obama came to you
in four, eight year's time
or whatever and said ambassador, well, Mr. Barzun,
do you think I should?
- I hope she would say Matthew.
- [Interviewer] Matthew (laughs) as friends.
Maybe I should run now.
The Democratic party needs me.
Could you see that happening?
- Well, two part, in that hypothetical,
I guess I'm not supposed to really answer hypotheticals.
It's such a happy and fun one,
I would be thrilled.
Although, my boss, her husband,
went on the record a few weeks back
sort of categorically ruling out
her desire to run for public office.
So I don't want you-- - We had that from Hillary
Clinton a few years back.
- Well, okay, I don't wanna preempt my boss,
but I am a huge fan, and I think that is not unique to me.
Many Americans from both parties,
people around the world.
Certainly I hear it a lot in the United Kingdom
and when she came here for that visit
with the Mulberry School for Girls.
She is an incredible, powerful leader,
and I'm a big fan.
(gentle music)
- I wanna 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.
- Thank you. - Yes.
(audience applauding)
- [Narrator] The political landscape of the United States
has shifted dramatically since the days
of the Obama administration.
But nonetheless, the impact of the work achieved
by first lady Michelle Obama has remained
alive in the many hearts and minds
she worked so hard to inspire.
- There's tremendous nostalgia for the Obamas.
Look what the U.S. is dealing with at the moment.
It's just complete government disarray,
investigations, disunity, polarization.
It's very stressful for most Americans today
in dealing with the current administration.
This is even though the U.S. economy
is actually doing fairly well.
As a result, a lot of Americans are really
nostalgic about the Obamas.
Those that were probably a little bit too critical
of the Obamas, either on the left or on the right,
at least recognize that it was a period
of direction, calm, prudency,
where the U.S. could say that they
were a world leader, that they held
some moral high ground.
I think as we move on into this new era,
a period of politics that is more polarized
than ever, you're seeing the need
for a type of chief executive who can
comfort people, who can unite people,
who's articulate, who's educated,
who knows how to say the right things
in the right moments and doesn't try to divide us.
(gentle guitar music)
You have someone who is incredibly ambitious,
successful, hardworking, she balances
with also being very maternal, very warm,
very caring, very real.
She was very civic minded but hated politics.
She was very authentic, very frank and honest,
had a very strong strength of character,
very strong moral character.
She was assertive when she needed to be,
but she's also savvy to know when she needed to
take a supporting role.
She had a very wholesome upbringing,
and she carried that on into the White House,
ensuring that her kids had the same
type of upbringing, albeit how strange
it must've been to be growing up in the White House.
She was a rock for Barack.
She was one of the most popular
first ladies in U.S. history.
(gentle music)
- The most important thing for you to do
is to be able to pick yourself up when you fall
because most of life is falling.
And the real challenge is how do you get back up.
- [Narrator] First lady was never a role she expected,
but no one can say it wasn't a role
she made wholly her own.
Her continued popularity is evidenced
by the international success of her autobiography
"Becoming Michelle Obama."
She is testament to her ethos of self love,
hard work and family
that an African American girl from a working class
background on the South Side of Chicago
can become one of the most important
and magnetic voices of the 21st century.
- Part of the way we understood people
and developed empathy was really because our parents
had a keen sense of people and context and human behavior.
- [Man] I don't know if she wrote this in there,
but she didn't have a whole lotta boyfriends.
- I did too. (audience laughing)
- He knew, and so I was like
I can't take him to play with me.
I play with real dudes.
(audience laughing)
(drowned out by laughing)
And she said, "Come on, please, can't you?
"Don't you have some guys you could take him with?"
I was like all right.
So I take him to play,
and to make a long story short, this is what he did.
He shot the ball when he shoulda shot it.
He passed when he should pass.
He didn't call fouls all the time
like some of you guys do out there
(audience laughing)
who I hate playin' with.
But most of all, he didn't just pass me the ball
'cause I was Michelle's brother,
and that told me a lot.
That told me a lot about him as a person,
so I reported that back to Dad
(audience laughing)
before I told her.
And that helped sort of grease the skids
for him to come on in.
(audience laughing)
(gentle music)
- Those kids would be drinking kegs.
I hadn't heard about a keg until I got to Princeton,
and then you'd smell it every weekend,
all up and down the hallway, beer everywhere.
We weren't really drinkin' beer.
Black kids just wanted to dance.
They wanted to party.
Maybe do a little somethin' somethin'.
(drowned out by laughter)
(audience laughing)
Everybody went oh because he didn't know what that was.
- [Woman] Yes he does.
Yes he does, Michelle.
(audience laughing)
(drowned out by laughing)
- I'm the good kid.
(audience laughing)
- We're gonna go to the next slide.
(audience laughing)
(upbeat music)