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Michelle Obama Responded to Trump's Latest Twitter Rant Against Baltimore


As former First Lady Michelle Obama once famously said, “When they go, we go high”—and that’s exactly what it appears she’s doing following President Donald Trump‘s latest Twitter rant. Only a week after a racially charged Twitter attack on four female congresswomen of color, Trump lashed out on Saturday (July 27) at Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, attacking both Cummings personally and his district in Baltimore.

“Rep, Elijah Cummings has been a brutal bully, shouting and screaming at the great men & women of Border Patrol about conditions at the Southern Border, when actually his Baltimore district is FAR WORSE and more dangerous. His district is considered the Worst in the USA,” Trump wrote. “As proven last week during a Congressional tour, the Border is clean, efficient & well run, just very crowded. Cumming District is a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess. If he spent more time in Baltimore, maybe he could help clean up this very dangerous & filthy place.”

The attack, which Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and many others also called out as racist, likely stems from some recent political drama: NPR reported that on Thursday, the House Oversight and Reform Committee, a committee overseen by Cummings, voted to authorize subpoenas for records of senior White House officials’ to ascertain their use of personal emails and text services for work purposes.

Cummings quickly responded to Trump’s tweet, writing in reply, “Mr. President, I go home to my district daily. Each morning, I wake up, and I go and fight for my neighbors. It is my constitutional duty to conduct oversight of the Executive Branch. But, it is my moral duty to fight for my constituents.”

Obama was among those who quickly defended Cummings—and Baltimore—on Twitter. Her response was subtle, but extremely classy: She clapped back against the President’s invective with a tweet highlighting one of her favorite Baltimore organizations, the Lethal Ladies.

“On #NationalDanceDay, I’m shouting out the Lethal Ladies, a Baltimore STEP team who I saw perform back in 2017. I’m so proud of you all—and everyone who’s dancing today,” she tweeted, along with a short video of their performance.

In the video, the young women not only display their talents but send their own powerful message as well.

“What Michelle Obama taught us when someone is cruel or acts like a bully, you don’t stoop to their level,” their instructor says adding, “Our motto is…” Then, the young women reply in their dance, “When they go low, we go high/Raise our standards to the sky.” Hear, hear.





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Michelle Obama Wore Her Natural Curls, and People Are Living for It


Michelle Obama took the stage at the Essence Festival in New Orleans on Saturday (July 6) to have a conversation with Gayle King—and dispense some great advice about dating and marriage. We’re always here for whatever pearls of wisdom Obama has ready to share, but fans of the former First Lady were here for another thing, too: her natural curls, topped off with golden ombré highlights.

We don’t often see Obama’s hair worn like this. She’s openly spoken about having to adopt a “hair strategy” in the White House as part of a deeply frustrating but all-too-real reality about navigating her role as a Black woman in politics.

“Well, you know, the first thing you’ve got to worry about is how to keep [your hair] healthy,” Obama shared on the 2 Dope Queens podcast. “My whole goal was, I want to end this with hair on my head. And so now you’ve got to think about, How do you do that, you know? What are you doing? And are you swimming? Are you working out? But this wasn’t just a first lady journey. This is a black professional women’s journey.”

The strategy was so involved, she said she was “sure a lot of white women are sitting over there going, ‘Man, I didn’t know all that was going on.'”

It’s not just highly visible women like Obama who have been policed about the way their hair grows out of their head. Black women are also passed over for jobs or promotions—despite their qualifications—due to prejudices about their natural or braided hair. California, in fact, just passed the first law of its kind banning discrimination against people with natural hair.

Twitter was here for the moment.

Erika Goldring/Getty Images

“Natural haired Michelle Obama is the good luck charm I needed today,” one fan wrote.

One of the last times we saw Obama with her natural curls was on the cover of Essence in 2018. She was also pictured with her natural texture in 2017, a few months after leaving the White House. Here’s hoping we see more of her curls in the future.





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Michelle Obama Shared Some Powerful Relationship Advice: 'Marry Your Equal'


In addition to being an accomplished lawyer, a style icon, and record-breaking author, Michelle Obama is also like another mother when it comes to dispensing extremely valuable life advice. On Saturday night (July 6) during the Essence Festival, she was at it again, sharing some of her thoughts on dating and marriage. Obama left the audience with some thoughtful advice about why women should find an equal who wants “you to win as much as you want them to win.”

The sage words came during a keynote conversation with CBS anchor Gayle King. The topic turned to marriage, and Obama quickly broke in with the philosophies that have helped her and Barack Obama through more than 26 years that have included two children and two terms in the White House.

“Marriage is a choice you make every day,” she explained. “You don’t do it because it’s easy. You do it because you believe in it. You believe in the other person.”

“And ladies and gentleman, that’s why it’s so important to marry somebody that you respect,” she continued, “It’s important to marry somebody who is your equal, and to marry and be with somebody who wants you to win as much as you want them to win.”

The idea, she said, has some parallel to sports. “My husband is my teammate. If we are going to win this game together, he has to be strong and he has to be okay with me being strong. I do not want a weak player on my team, nor does he. But sometimes, we accept weak in one another because it feels easy. And be cautious of the man or woman who wants just the easy person.”

As a couple, the Obamas have constantly shown they have an unbelievably strong handle on working together. There’s the sweet stuff, like social media tributes and Spotify playlists, but they’ve always spoken about being each other’s source of support and encouragement. Power-couple goals? You bet.



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Michelle Obama Shares Her Lessons on Motherhood in a Moving Personal Essay


Former first lady Michelle Obama has always had sage advice to share in speeches; in her best-selling book, Becoming; and now, in a new personal essay in People. In honor of Mother’s Day, Obama penned a deeply personal essay in which she describes the important lessons her own mother, Marian Robinson, passed onto her.

“My mother is a woman who chooses her words carefully. She’ll sometimes speak in clipped sentences, her wisdom packed into short bursts and punctuated with an infectious smile or a wry laugh. It’s a style that makes her a favorite of everyone she meets—a sweet, witty companion who doesn’t need the limelight,” Obama wrote.

Obama added that as she grew older, she realized just how important that manner of conversation really was and how it truly reflected her mother’s parenting style. “Because when it came to raising her kids, my mom knew that her voice was less important than allowing me to use my own,” she wrote.

Malia, Sasha, and Michelle Obama attending the Democratic National Convention in 2012.Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

According to Obama, that meant her mother “listened a lot more than she lectured” when answering all the questions she threw her mother’s way.

“Why did we have to eat eggs for breakfast? Why do people need jobs? Why are the houses bigger in other neighborhoods? She didn’t chide me if I scrapped with some of the neighbor kids or challenged my ornery grandfather when I thought he was being a little too ornery,” Obama wrote. “She listened intently to the lunchtime conversations I had with my schoolmates over bologna sandwiches and nodded patiently along to tales of my contentious piano lessons with my great aunt Robbie.”

Obama continued that in today’s world, it may be easy to see her mother’s actions as “negligent” because she allowed her children to “rule the roost.” But, she noted, the reality was far from that.

“She and my father, Fraser, were wholly invested in their children, pouring a deep and durable foundation of goodness and honesty, of right and wrong, into my brother and me. After that, they simply let us be ourselves,” she wrote.

Obama added that now, as a mother of two nearly grown women, she sees just how important that freedom is.

“… I see now how important that kind of freedom is for all children, particularly for girls with flames of their own—flames the world might try to dim,” she wrote. “It’s up to us, as mothers and mother-figures, to give the girls in our lives the kind of support that keeps their flame lit and lifts up their voices—not necessarily with our own words, but by letting them find the words themselves.”



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Michelle Obama Just Compared Donald Trump To A "Divorced Dad"


Michelle Obama has been relatively quiet about the Trump administration since she and her husband moved out of the White House. (She is the woman who once said, “When they go low, we go high.”) But on a few choice occasions, she gives us a little peek into how she feels about the Trump era. At a book event in conversation with late night host Stephen Colbert earlier this week, she didn’t mention the current president explicitly, but she did comment that it feels like America now is “living with divorced dad.”

The event took place in London during the international leg of her book tour for Becoming, her record-smashing, bestselling memoir. And her appereances have not only reminded audiences why the fashionable former first lady was once named America’s most admired woman, but also given her an opportunity to be more candid about the current political climate. During the discussion, Obama compared the U.S. to a “teenager” adjusting to family turmoil.

“We are a teenager,” she said, according to The Independent. “And we come from a broken family, we’re a teenager, we’re a little unsettled, and having good parents, it’s tough, sometimes you spend the weekend with divorced dad and that seems fun until you get sick. That’s what America is going through, living with divorced dad.”

The Washington Post writes that her characterization prompted Colbert to do an impersonation of the president. Obama reportedly only laughed and shook her head, keeping things classy and refraining from elaborating further on her comments. However, she seemed to direct the conversation toward Trump later when she spoke about how living in the White House didn’t change her husband Barack Obama or their children.

“We were always ourselves, the presidency does not change who you are. It reveals who you are,” she said.

Still, she isn’t too pessimistic about the direction in which America is headed. At the event, she struck a hopeful note and reminded people of how resilient humans have been, even in the face of dire challenges.

“It may feel like a dark chapter but any story has its highs and lows, but it continues. Yeah, we’re in a low, but we’ve been lower,” she said. “We’ve had tougher times with more to fear. We’re lived through slavery and the Holocaust and segregation and we’ve always come out on the other end, better and stronger.”



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Barack Obama Sent the Sweetest Engagement Note to Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez


After two years of dating, Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez are engaged. And although the blissfully Instagram-happy couple has plenty of fans who have followed the romance since it officially kicked off, it seems like their No. 1 fan is none other than former President Barack Obama.

Shortly after the pair announced their engagement on Instagram, the former POTUS sent the pair an adorable note congratulating the couple on their engagement. Naturally, Rodriguez shared the note on Friday after receiving it (come on, wouldn’t you?).

On his personal stationary, Obama wrote:

Jennifer and Alex –
Michelle and I just wanted to congratulate you on your engagement. After 26 years together, we can say that whatever challenges life may bring, sharing them with someone you love makes it all better.
All the best,
Barack Obama

In his social media post, which he shared to both Instagram and Twitter, Rodriguez shared a photo of the note and simply captioned it, “This means the world to us. #44”

As for how J.Lo and A-Rod know the Obamas, Vulture reports that Rodriguez likely first met the former President when he visited the White House back in 2010 with the rest of the Yankees. Lopez, on the other hand, recently shared the stage with Michelle Obama in February during the 2019 Grammys.

But it might just be that the Obamas are simply big fans of the couple just like the rest of us. After all, the Lopez-Rodriguez twosome are a couple who appear to be madly, deeply, truly in love—kind of like the Obamas themselves.

“Everything that we do, we do together,” Lopez recently shared with People in an in-depth interview last week about their relationship. “We’re constantly supporting each other in our individual endeavors and then we’re thinking about all the things that we can build together.” She added, “He knows my dreams and I know his dreams, and together we feel like we’re stronger. He is my biggest collaborator, and my biggest supporter.”



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