Michelle Obama campaigned for Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire on Thursday, where she delivered a blistering, spine-tingling, righteously indignant attack on Donald Trump and his treatment of women, without ever once using his name. Obama witheringly described “Hillary’s opponent,” calling what he’s wrought “intolerable.”
Ever since her legendary speech at the DNC this summer, Michelle Obama has been one of Clinton’s most effective, impassioned campaigners. She never uses Trump’s name in her stump speeches, but spent an unusual portion of time today talking about the corrosive effects of “hatred and fear” and political candidates “who brag about sexually assaulting women.”
“I can’t believe that I’m saying that a candidate for president of the United States has bragged about sexually assaulting women,” she said, adding that the comments “have shaken me to my core.”
“Too many of us are treating this as just another day’s headline,” she told the hushed crowd. “As though our outrage is overblown or unwarranted. As though this is normal, just politics as usual. But this is disgraceful, this is intolerable... None of us deserve this kind of abuse.”
Obama was also plaintive and visibly emotional when she talked about the effects of Trump’s comments on children: “If this is painful to us as grown women, what do you think this is doing to our children?” she asked. “What lessons are they learning about their values as professionals? As human beings?About their dreams and aspirations?”
She added, too, in case you had any doubt, that the men around her don’t brag about pussy-grabbing: “The men in my life do not talk about women like this and I know that my family is not unusual. Calling this ‘locker room talk’ is an insult to decent men everywhere... Strong men don’t need to put down women to make themselves feel powerful.”
She closed with a sincere testament to Clinton: “We’ve seen her character and commitment not just in this campaign but over the course of her entire life,” she said, praising her for being willing to work for Obama after losing the election to him. “If any of us had raised a daughter like Hillary Clinton, we would be so proud.”
Obama also talked about the importance of women’s votes: “Remember this: in 2012, women’s votes were the difference between Barack winning and losing in key swing states, including in New Hampshire.”
You can watch Obama’s comments from the 25:00 mark in the video below, and you should.
Update, 1:10 p.m.:
Meanwhile, as Michelle Obama spoke, Donald Trump was calling a reporter a “sleazebag” and having him thrown out of an event for asking him whether he has ever inappropriately touched a woman. The entire room jeers the reporter as he’s ejected.