Michelle Obama didn’t attend former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral on Thursday on account of a scheduling battle, aides to the previous first woman advised CNN.
She was in Hawaii on the time on an prolonged vacation trip, her advisers told CNN’s Jeff Zeleny.
“Mrs. Obama sends her ideas and prayers to the Carter household, and everybody who cherished and discovered from the outstanding former President,” Crystal Carson, a spokesperson for Michelle Obama, said in a statement to Politico.
Her husband, Barack Obama, did attend the occasion, and sat beside President-elect Donald Trump. Michelle Obama apparently would have been seated there had she attended. All 5 residing presidents have been on the ceremony; Michelle Obama was the one partner who didn’t attend.
Trump and the Obamas do not need a pleasant historical past. Trump routinely assaults his predecessor and for years pushed a racist conspiracy concept that he was not born within the U.S.
The Obamas campaigned fiercely towards Trump previously two elections. Barack Obama warned in August that one other Trump time period would imply “4 extra years of bluster and bumbling and chaos.” His spouse, in her personal speech on the Democratic Nationwide Conference, stated Trump has completed “all the things in his energy to try to make individuals concern us.”
“His restricted slender view of the world made him really feel threatened by two hardworking, profitable individuals who occurred to be Black,” she stated.
On the marketing campaign path, Trump known as her “nasty” and requested if he was “allowed to hit her” again, a flip of phrase that many interpreted as a menace.
Trump and Barack Obama have been seen chatting, smiling and laughing collectively on the funeral in an trade that went viral. Trump later addressed the second, saying, “It did look very pleasant, I need to say. I didn’t understand how pleasant it regarded.”
“We met backstage, as , earlier than we went on. And I believed it was an exquisite service. However all of us received alongside very effectively, which is nice,” he added.
