Michelle Obama reveals miscarriage and
condemns 'reckless' Trump in new book
•
First lady’s two daughters conceived by in
vitro fertilisation
•
Obama criticises Trump for encouraging
‘wingnuts and kooks’
David Smith in Washington
@smithinamerica
Fri 9 Nov 2018 17.12 GMT
She is one of the most famous women in the world and a personification
of liberal nostalgia for a time when Donald Trump was merely a rich reality TV
star. Now Michelle Obama has stepped back into the limelight with a
memoir that combines the personal and political with rare candour.
Step back: to temporarily stop being involved in an activity or
situation in order to think about it in a new way
Limelight: public attention and interest
America’s first black first lady reveals she her and her husband, Barack
Obama, sought marriage counselling and struggled to get pregnant after she
suffered a miscarriage. They underwent in vitro fertilisation
(IVF) treatments to conceive daughters Malia and Sasha, now 20 and 17.
Miscarriage: an early, unintentional end to a pregnancy when the
baby is born too early and dies because it has not developed enough
Undergo: to experience something that is unpleasant or
something that involves a change
Obama also says she will “never forgive” Trump for peddling false
conspiracy theories about her husband’s birthplace which, she says, put her
family’s life in danger from “wingnuts and kooks”.
Peddle: If you peddle stories or information, you spread
them by telling different people
Wingnuts: According to Merriam-Webster, it is "a mentally
deranged person" or "one who advocates extreme measures or changes:
radical." In American politics, the term is more often aimed at members of
the political right than those of the political left, for which the alternative
term "moonbat" is more often used. David M. Herszenhorn of The New
York Times has defined a "wing nut" as "a loud darling of cable
television and talk radio whose remarks are outrageous but often serious enough
not to be dismissed entirely."
Kook: a pejorative term for a person who holds an
unshakable belief that most others consider to be ludicrously false
Ludicrously: stupid or unreasonable and deserving to be laughed
at
The revelations came before Tuesday’s release of Obama’s 426-page
memoir, “Becoming”, likely to be a huge hit and reignite speculation
over whether she might run for president – a move she has always ruled out.
Rule out: to stop considering something as a possibility
Now 54, Obama said she felt “lost and alone” after a miscarriage 20
years ago. “I felt like I failed because I didn’t know how common miscarriages
were, because we don’t talk about them,” she said in an interview broadcast on
Friday on ABC’s Good Morning America breakfast show. “We sit in our own pain,
thinking that somehow we’re broken.”
Obama added: “It’s important to talk to young mothers about the fact
that miscarriages happen.”
She said: “The biological clock is real … egg production is limited. I
realised as I was 34 and 35, we had to do IVF. I think it’s the worst thing
that we do to each other as women, not share the truth about our bodies and how
they work.”
Obama, a former lawyer and hospital administrator, also disclosed
her marriage went through some rocky times, especially after Barack
Obama joined the Illinois state legislature, leaving her at home where she was
forced to administer IVF shots herself.
Disclose: to make something known publicly, or to show
something that was hidden
Rocky times: hard times, troublesome times
They met a counselor “a handful of times,” she writes, and she came to
realise she was more “in charge” of her happiness than she had realised.
“This was my pivot point,” Obama explains. “My moment of self-arrest.”
To be in charge: responsibility for controlling or caring
for something:
Her ex-husband has charge of the children
during the week and she has them at the weekend.
His boss asked him to take charge of the
office for a few days while she was away.
Self-arrest: mountaineering maneuver in which a climber that has
fallen and is sliding down a snow or ice slope arrests (stops) the slide by
himself without recourse to a rope or other system.
She told ABC: “Marriage counselling for us was one of those ways where
we learned how to talk out our differences. I know too many young couples who
struggle and think that somehow there’s something wrong with them. And I want
them to know that Michelle and Barack Obama, who have a phenomenal marriage and
who love each other, we work on our marriage. And we get help with our
marriage when we need it.”
The couple met at the Chicago law firm Sidley Austin. In the book, Obama
also describes falling in love one summer night in Chicago. “As soon as I
allowed myself to feel anything for Barack, the feelings came rushing – a toppling
blast of lust, gratitude, fulfilment, wonder.”
Topple: to fall
Blast: to explode or destroy something or someone with
explosives, or to break through or hit something with a similar, very strong
force
Lust: a very strong sexual desire, a very powerful feeling
of wanting something
Fulfilment: the fact of doing something that is necessary or
something that someone has wanted or promised to do
Obama’s speech at the 2016 Democratic convention in Philadelphia, in the
throes of a presidential election, remains widely seen as the
archetypal antidote to Trumpism. Her plea “When they go low, we go
high,” became a cri de cœur for many progressives, though some say it is
now time to fight the president on his own terms.
Throes: experiencing or
doing something that is difficult, unpleasant, or painful
Widely: including a lot of different places, people,
subjects, etc
Plea: an urgent and emotional request
Plea: an urgent and emotional request
Cri de cœur: an urgent and strongly felt
request for help from someone in a very bad situation
In the book, Obama proves willing to mix it up. She accuses Trump
of putting her family’s safety at risk by spreading the false “birther”
conspiracy theory against her husband.
Prove to will: show herself ready to
Trump suggested repeatedly and loudly in high-profile public forums that
Barack Obama, who father was Kenyan, was not born in the US but on foreign soil
and therefore ineligible for president. In fact, Barack Obama was born in
Hawaii and eventually displayed his birth certificate. Trump eventually, reluctantly, conceded the US president
was American-born.
Reluctanly: not wanting to do something
Obama writes: “The whole thing was crazy and mean-spirited, of course,
its underlying bigotry and
xenophobia hardly concealed. But it was also dangerous, deliberately meant to stir up the wingnuts and kooks. Donald
Trump, with his loud and reckless
innuendos, was putting my family’s safety at risk. And for this I’d never
forgive him.”
Bigotry: intolerance
Stir up: to close
Reckless: doing something dangerous and not caring about what might happen
Innuendos: (the making of) a remark or
remarks that suggest something sexual or something unpleasant but do not refer
to it directly
She expresses disbelief over how so many women would choose a “misogynist”
in Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016. She remembers how her body “buzzed with
fury” after seeing the infamous Access Hollywood tape, in which Trump brags about sexually assaulting women.
Brags: to talk too proudly about something good that you have done or that you
own
Obama also accuses Trump of using body language to “stalk” Clinton during an election debate.
Stalk: to harass (a person) threateningly, as by pursuit,
intimidating phone calls, etc.
Trump’s message, according to Obama, in words which appear in the book
in darkened print, was: “I can hurt you and get away with it.”
She writes how she reacted in shock the night she learned he would
replace her husband in the Oval Office and tried to “block it all out”.
Block out: to stop yourself from thinking about an unpleasant
memory because it upsets you
Obama has offered few extensive comments on her White House years since
departing the presidential residence on the day of Trump’s inauguration in
January 2017. Memoirs by former first ladies, including Hillary Clinton and
Laura Bush, have been bestsellers.
“Becoming”is part of a joint book deal with Barack Obama – whose memoir
is expected next year – that is thought to be worth tens of millions of
dollars. The Obamas have said they will donate a “significant portion” of their
author proceeds to charity, including the Obama Foundation.
Obama launches her promotional tour on Tuesday at Chicago’s United
Center, where tens of thousands of people have bought tickets — ranging from
just under $30 to thousands of dollars — to attend the event moderated by Oprah
Winfrey. Other stops on a tour worthy of
a rock star are planned at large arenas
including New York City’s Barclays Center and the Los Angeles Forum.
Worthy of: deserving of, good enough to merit
Arena: sports stadium
The high profile events are bound to reignite calls for a presidential
run. A recent poll from Axios by SurveyMonkey found that if she ran for
president in 2020, Obama would have a 13-point advantage over Trump, while TV
star and media entrepreneur Oprah Winfrey would have a 12-point advantage.
Obama has long said she has no interest in running for office, although
she held a few campaign-style rallies before this week’s midterm elections,
urging people to register to vote. She writes: ‘I’ve never been a fan of
politics, and my experience over the last ten years has done little to change
that. I continue to be put off by the nastiness.’”
Hold / held / held: to take and keep something in your hand or arms ( I
want to hold your hand –Beattles-)
Nastiness: unpleasant happenings
Before departing the White House for France on Friday, Trump was asked
about Obama’s book. He said: “Michelle Obama got paid a lot of money to write a
book and they always insist you come up with controversy. I’ll give you some
back.
“I’ll never forgive him for what he did to our United States military by
not funding it properly. What he did to our military made this country very
unsafe.”
Author Josh Kendall, who is currently writing a book about how the
#MeToo movement casts a new light on presidential history, said: “The entire
nation was moved by her plea during her speech at the DNC in 2016 to ‘go high’
instead of low. I would be surprised if a draft
Michelle for 2020 drive wasn’t started some time at the beginning of her book
tour.”
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