Jesse Watters was not impressed after Michelle Obama said she would not attend GOP President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, even though neither Trump nor his wife attended Democrat Joe Biden’s four years ago.
On Tuesday’s broadcast of “Jesse Watters Primetime,” the Fox News host complained that the former first lady had already missed former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral last week. Aides to Obama, who would have been seated next to Trump at the service, said she was in Hawaii at time.
“She just doesn’t want to go,” Watters said of the inauguration, before going on to reference Obama’s husband, former President Barack Obama. “Michelle’s hanging Barack out to dry for the second high-profile political event within just a few weeks. Why are Barack and Michelle on such different pages? Barack can’t convince his wife she has to do her duty and attend the inauguration?”
“I remember when it was unpatriotic to skip an inauguration,” he added, pointing to media outlets making “sore loser” criticisms of Trump in 2021 when he declined to go to Biden’s swearing-in and instead flew to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
“The media and the Democrats are singing a different tune now that it’s one of their own breaking the norms they claim to love so much.”
The circumstances are somewhat different. When Donald Trump and spouse Melania Trump skipped Biden’s inauguration, the Republican politician had been claiming for months, without evidence, that the 2020 election had been “stolen” from him.
Two weeks before Inauguration Day in 2021, a violent mob of Donald Trump supporters, spurred by his lies, attacked the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to prevent the certification of the election results.
He was “the first president in more than 150 years … to skip his successor’s swearing-in for reasons other than ill-health,” the Council on Foreign Relations think tank wrote at the time.
Trump persistently eroded and ignored norms during his presidency and beyond. Last year, he was publicly likened by his own former chief of staff to a fascist who would govern like a dictator if allowed.
Some Democrats, including Barack Obama, have been accused of normalizing Trump following his 2024 election win by being civil.
Michelle Obama did not provide a reason for her decision not to attend the president-elect’s upcoming inauguration. She campaigned fiercely against Trump, who last week formally became a convicted felon, and in October she said, “in any other profession or arena, Trump’s criminal track record and amoral character would be embarrassing, shameful and disqualifying.”
Barack Obama is expected to attend Trump’s inauguration, as are former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, plus their wives, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former first lady Laura Bush.
Watters’ criticism of Michelle Obama set off some profuse eye-rolling on social media.
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