Michelle Obama slammed Donald Trump as a “felon, slumlord” and a “predator” in a fiery speech in Michigan, where she delivered a stark warning for the future of reproductive rights in the US should the former president return to the White House.
In some of her most potent remarks on the campaign trail thus far, the former First Lady painted a sobering picture of the state of abortion rights and pregnancy care in the years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade and revoked a constitutional right to abortion access.
Trump has “no honor, no decency, no morals,” Obama said from Kalamazoo, Michigan, which she rebranded as “Kamala-zoo.”
“People write off his ‘childish indecency’ as Trump just being Trump,” she said. “Rather than question his horrible behavior, some folks think he’s just funny.”
She added: “I hope you’ll forgive me if I’m a little frustrated that some of us are choosing to ignore Donald Trump’s gross incompetence, while asking Kamala to dazzle us at every turn.
“I hope that you’ll forgive me if I’m a little angry that we are indifferent to his erratic behavior, his obvious mental decline, his history as a convicted felon, a known slum lord, a predator found liable for sexual abuse,” said Obama, referencing Trump’s guilty verdict in Manhattan in his hush money scandal, his infamous history as a landlord, and a verdict in a defamation trial from a woman who accused him of sexual assault.
Obama also described various common but terrifying scenarios in pregnancies gone wrong, drawing a contrast between Trump’s healthcare agenda and Harris’s support for abortion rights.
“I don’t want to be a downer, y’all, but in many cases, there is no warning, and things go bad very quickly, and when it happens, every second of hesitation or delay can lead to devastating outcomes,” she said.
“Do not put our lives in the hands of politicians, mostly men, who have no clue or do not care about what we as women are going through, who don’t fully grasp the broad reaching health implications that their misguided policies will have on our health outcomes,” Obama added.
Addressing male voters directly, she added: “Are you, as men, prepared to look into the eyes of the women and children you love and tell them that you supported this assault on our safety?”
People who withhold their vote as they put Harris to a purity test are making women “collateral damage to your rage,” according to Harris.
“We are more than baby-making vessels,” she said.
The former First Lady’s speech comes after Harris held a rally focused explicitly on women’s reproductive rights in Houston, Texas, along with music superstar Beyonce.
“I’m not here as a celebrity,” Beyonce told supporters in her native Houston on Friday. “I’m not here as a politician. I’m here as a mother, a mother who cares deeply about the world my children, and all of our children, are living in. A world where we have the freedom to control our bodies,”
At his own rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, Trump said that attendees of Harris’ Houston rally had only gone to see Beyonce sing, which she did not, and that the music superstar did not know who the vice president was.
“[Harris] had Beyonce because she can’t draw a crowd. See this crowd, this crowd is packed. I could sell it out three times.” he said. “And we don’t have Beyonce who couldn’t fill the arena last night,” he said.
“But the people went there because they thought they’re going to hear Beyonce sing, right? Beyonce got out and said, ‘Hello, ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to endorse her. What’s her name? What’s her name? What is her name again? Oh, I’m going to endorse her.’
“So what happened is the crowd came because they thought she was going to sing. Then she turned around, she left, and Kamala started speaking, and it was a disaster.”
He previously baselessly claimed that people had “booed” Beyonce as she left the stage.
Back in Michigan, Obama turned her anger towards Trump and those who hold Harris to “a higher standard” than her opponent.
“We expect her to be intelligent, articulate, have a clear set of policies, and never show too much anger … But for Trump? We expect nothing at all,” she said. “No understanding of policy, no ability to put together coherent arguments.”