Washington
CNN
—
Former First Lady Michelle Obama will not attend Donald Trump’s inauguration next week, her office announced Tuesday, without providing an explanation for her decision.
“Former President Barack Obama has been confirmed to attend the 60th inauguration. A statement issued by Barack and Michelle Obama’s office said that former First Lady Michelle Obama will not attend the upcoming inauguration.
The decision to abandon attendance at Trump’s official swearing-in ceremony is a departure from the traditions followed in the ceremony, in which former presidents and their wives usually participate. His office said that former President George W. Bush and Laura Bush will attend the inauguration, and informed sources told CNN that former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton will also attend the inauguration.
Michelle Obama also did not attend former President Jimmy Carter’s memorial service last week, remaining instead in Hawaii. Former President Barack Obama attended the Mass at the National Cathedral in Washington, where he sat next to Trump and engaged in a lively conversation with him as the program began.
Other former first ladies, including Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush, attended Carter’s event.
Michelle Obama has spoken out about her animosity toward Trump, whom she accused of putting her family’s safety in jeopardy with his rhetoric.
In 2017, she put those personal feelings aside after Trump won his first presidential election, and welcomed the incoming president and Melania Trump to the White House for tea before taking the oath of office that year.
In the years since, she has spoken about the experience of sitting on stage during Trump’s inauguration.
“There were tears, and there were those emotions,” she said on a podcast in 2023. “But then we sit on that stage and watch the opposite of what we represent on screen,” she said in a podcast in 2023. “There was no diversity, there was no color on that stage, there was no reflection.” In the broader sense of America.
The Trump family will not attend President Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021 amid the president-elect’s false claims that he won the 2020 election.
CNN’s Jimmy Jungle contributed to this report.