Michelle Obama, 61, has mocked President Donald Trump’s demolition of the White House East Wing, which once housed the first lady’s office.
“There’s pressure for every first lady,” she told host Jenna Bush Hager on Tuesday’s Today show. “There’s no guidebook… There’s barely a staff. Now we don’t have a building.”
Bush Hager, 43, the daughter of former President George W. Bush and first lady Laura Bush, laughed along with Obama, saying, “I know, R.I.P. the East Wing.”
Recently, another first daughter, Chelsea Clinton, expressed her feelings on the demolition.
“What was dismantled today isn’t just marble or plaster; it is a reflection of how easily history can be erased when power forgets purpose,” the daughter of Bill and Hillary Clinton wrote on Oct. 23 in USA Today.
Trump insisted in July that his 90,000 square-foot ballroom construction would not “interfere with the current building.”
Since demolition began in October, the White House’s East Wing has been entirely torn down to make way for the president’s $350 million project, which skyrocketed from a $200 million price point in July.
The gilded ballroom will replace the East Wing, where Bush Hager’s mother, Laura, had a historic meeting with the United Nation’s Special Advisor on Burma (now Myanmar) on Dec. 17, 2007, just months after the country’s Saffron Revolution.
Bush also launched her literacy efforts in the building, and Michelle Obama oversaw her “Let’s Move” campaign—a task force focused on childhood obesity.
Obama, the first Black woman to become first lady, commented on her unique experience serving in the role for eight years.
“And I don’t think that other families dealt with that kind of criticism. But as you know, the first lady, it’s a strange job,” she said.
She expanded more on the difficulties in a Monday interview with People.
“As a Black woman, I felt that I had to make sure that people could see my feminine side,” she said. “Especially early on in the campaign, when I was being attacked as being angry, a shrew, demeaning my husband—all these labels were coming in on me that were essentially trying to rob me of that femininity.”
She clarified to Bush Hager that “the light was a little bit brighter because politics created an other-ness” when she was serving as first lady.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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