Former First Lady Michelle Obama will not attend President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration next week.
In a statement from the Office of Barack and Michelle Obama, it was confirmed that while former President Barack Obama will attend the 60th Inaugural Ceremonies, Michelle Obama won’t be joining him. No specific reason for her absence was given.
The news comes just days after she did not attend the state funeral service for former President Jimmy Carter.
Mrs.Obama has been a vocal critic of Trump throughout the 2016, 2020 and 2024 presidential elections. In her 2018 memoir Becoming, Mrs. Obama shared her shock when she learned that Trump would succeed her husband. She also didn’t hold back, condemning Trump’s “birther” campaign that cast doubt on Barack Obama’s citizenship.
Last fall, she hit the campaign trail for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, delivering a stirring speech in Michigan. There, she made a direct call to action, urging men to vote for Harris and stressing the stakes of Trump’s potential return to the White House: “Women’s lives would be at risk,” she said, referencing the impact on women’s rights under a second Trump administration.
Her office shared that her last public appearance was on October 26, 2023, when she campaigned alongside Vice President Kamala Harris in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She also sat down for an interview with Jennifer Hudson on December 17, according to NBC News.
Mrs. Obama did attend Trump’s inauguration in 2017, though it wasn’t exactly a fond memory for her. In 2023, on her podcast, The Light Podcast, she reflected on that day: “[T]here was no diversity, there was no color on that stage. There was no reflection of the broader sense of America. Many people took pictures of me and they’re like, you weren’t in a good mood. No, I was not.”