The Trump Rampage Against Michelle Obama’s Speech Is Just Getting Started

On Monday night, First Lady Michelle Obama kicked off the Democratic National Convention with an impassioned and direct speech about the state of our country. Over the course of 18 minutes, Obama addressed the fact that our economy is "in shambles," and mourned the 150,000+ people who have died as a direct result of President Donald Trump’s decision to downplay COVID-19.

“Whenever we look to this White House for some leadership, or consolation, or any semblance of steadiness, what we get instead is chaos, division, and a total and utter lack of empathy,” she noted within the first few minutes. Obama's speech left little question about her opinion of our current president. And, to no one's surprise, Trump has already gone on the offensive, firing back at the former first lady in a series of tweets on Tuesday morning.

“Somebody please explain to @MichelleObama that Donald J. Trump would not be here, in the beautiful White House, if it weren’t for the job done by your husband, Barack Obama. Biden was merely an afterthought, a good reason for that very late & unenthusiastic endorsement,” Trump tweeted, referring to himself in the third person.

In other tweets, Trump also claimed to have built “the greatest economy in history, of any country," that "jobs are flowing," and that he's "saved lives" — all despite the fact that unemployment rose higher in three months of COVID-19 than it did in two years of the Great Recession, according to Pew Research Center. Currently, the sheer number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits is higher than ever before in history — a fact which didn't escape Obama or other DNC speakers.

But Trump, who has recently refused to apologize for the dissemination of lies over the course of his presidency, continued to disparage his predecessor, making nonsensical accusations of corruption and treason.

But while Trump was cloying at the chance to “correct” the narrative, Obama was only one of many powerful speakers who denounced him in the first round of DNC speeches. Other leaders who spoke out against Trump included New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Sen. Bernie Sanders, who ultimately called Trump a threat to the future of America. 

More scathing criticisms of Trump during the DNC also came from former supporters who spoke out about how trusting him was the wrong move, including a denouncement from Rick Telesz, and from Kristin Urquiza, whose father, a Trump voter, recently died from COVID-19. “My dad was a healthy 65-year-old. His only preexisting condition was trusting Donald Trump, and for that he paid with his life,” she said. 

But Trump's Twitter rampage is just getting started: This was only the first night of speakers, and Trump has already began to unhinge by speaking out against powerhouse Democrats. Trump's attacks even extended to former Governor John Kasich, a member of his own party, who spoke at the DNC and called Trump out for sewing division instead of working to unite people.

While Obama has garnered wide praise for being a truly skilled orator who was able to calmly eviscerate our sitting president and impress upon the public the importance of voting in the general election, Trump has already proven to be anything but those things. Instead he is picking apart Michelle Obama, the only Black woman to speak at the convention so far, and to this we say: "People are dying, Don!"