Trump hits back at Michelle Obama over ‘extremely divisive’ convention speech

President Trump on Tuesday complained that former first lady Michelle Obama’s speech a night earlier at the Democratic National Convention was “extremely divisive,” hitting back after she said he’s “in over his head.”

“She was over her head, and frankly she should’ve made the speech live, which she didn’t do,” Trump said during a White House event commemorating the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage. “She taped it. It was taped a long time ago because she had the wrong deaths. She didn’t even mention the vice presidential candidate in the speech.”

“She gets these fawning reviews. If you gave a real review it wouldn’t be so fawning,” Trump added. “I thought it was a very divisive speech. Extremely divisive.”

The former first lady delivered the closing speech on the first night of the Democratic convention, blistering Trump for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and arguing he has shown he is incapable of handling the responsibilities of the presidency.

“Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country. He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job, but he is clearly in over his head,” Obama said in her speech, which was taped before Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) was added to the Democratic ticket last Tuesday.

“He cannot meet this moment. He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us. It is what it is,” she added, a reference to Trump’s own detached assessment of the death toll in the United States from the pandemic, which by Wednesday was more than 170,000.

The former first lady’s speech had clearly gotten under Trump’s skin. He tweeted about it multiple times earlier Tuesday and later targeted the Obama administration, dinging it for its handling of the swine flu outbreak and asserting that he “would not be here, in the beautiful White House, if it weren’t for the job done by your husband.”