Michelle Obama used her debut appearance on the campaign trail on Friday to cast Donald Trump as unprepared to succeed her husband in the White House, saying: “Being president isn’t anything like reality TV.”
Speaking at George Mason University in Virginia, Obama described the election as a choice between “one of the most qualified people who has ever endeavored to become president” and someone who did not “take the job seriously”.
Ticking off a list of accomplishments of her husband’s administration, she argued that if the past eight years were a guide, Trump was neither prepared nor qualified for the presidency.
“A candidate is not going to suddenly change when they get into office – it’s the opposite,” Obama told a crowd of mostly students and young people. “Because the minute that individual takes that oath, they are under the hottest, harshest light there is.”
The first lady also made reference to her well-received speech at the Democratic national convention in July, saying of Republican campaign tactics, “when they go low, we go high”.
Obama recalled the 2008 campaign that propelled her husband to the White House.
“Then there were those who questioned and continued to question for the past eight years and up through this very day whether my husband was even born in this country,” she said, again alluding to the Republican nominee without mentioning him by name.
Trump helped fan the flames of birtherism, a conspiracy theory that claims President Obama was born in Kenya and is thus not qualified to be president, using the issue to help propel his political ambitions.
On Friday morning, facing dismal approval ratings among minority voters, Trump said for the first time that Barack Obama was in fact born on US soil.
Michelle Obama is a powerful and popular ally for Clinton, especially among young voters. New polling shows that millennials, disappointed by their options for president, have increasingly turned toward third-party candidates.
The first lady’s appearance on a college campus in Virginia, a battleground state, was part of a broad push by the Clinton campaign to win back some millennial voters who have strayed. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, the challenger whose strong primary challenge to Clinton was powered by young people and students, will campaign for the Democratic nominee.
“Elections aren’t just about who votes but who doesn’t vote,” Obama said on Friday, imploring young people in the crowd to support Clinton and to fight the urge to “hide under the bed”, to avoid becoming “tired or turned off” by the election. She also addressed a complaint many young people who felt inspired by Sanders.
“I hear folks saying they don’t feel inspired in this election,” Obama said. “Well let me tell you, I disagree. I am inspired. Because for eight years, I’ve had the privilege to see what it takes to actually do this job, and here is what I absolutely know for sure.
“Listen to this: right now we have an opportunity to elect one of the most qualified people who has ever endeavored to become president.”
Above all, the event was a testament to Obama’s enduring popularity.
“It is so hard to believe that it is less than two months until election and that my family is almost at the end of term,” she said. The crowd broke into a raucous round of chanting, demanding “four more years”.
“No,” Obama said, waving her hand. The chant continued. “No!”
“I promise you,” she said, “Barack and I will continue to work for you for the rest of our lives.”
