First Lady Michelle Obama offered an emotional endorsement of Hillary Clinton on Monday, hailing the power that having a first female president would bring America and pouring scorn on Donald Trump.
The speech was at times raw and personal, and it electrified the arena.
“In this election, there is only one person who I trust with that responsibility, only one person who I believe is truly qualified to be president of the United States and that is our friend Hillary Clinton,” she said, to multiple standing ovations.
“Because of Hillary Clinton, my daughters and all of our sons and daughters now take for granted that a woman can be President of the United States,” said the wife of America’s first black president, her voice cracking with emotion.
The outgoing first lady remembered her two “bubbly little girls” Sasha and Malia, as they entered the White House and who leave it as “poised young women.”
But — in a thinly veiled jab at Trump — she also painted a picture of a family that had to struggle with the shrill tone of national politics.
“We urge them to ignore those who question their father’s citizenship or faith,” she said, a clear reference to Trump’s early demands to see President Barack Obama’s birth certificate.
“We insist that the hateful language they hear from public figures on TV does not represent the true spirit of this country,” the first lady said in a message that Democrats will hope resonates with fathers and mothers voting in November.
“Hillary Clinton has never quit on anything in her life,” Obama said. “I want someone with proven strength … someone who understands that the issues a president faces are not black and white and cannot be boiled down to 140 characters.”
“When you have the nuclear codes at your fingertips and the military in your command, you can’t make snap decisions,” she added. “You can’t have a thin skin or tendency to lash out.”
“Our motto is, ‘when they go low, we go high.'”
