Michelle Obama Drags Donald Trump Over His Tweeting Habits: “You Need to Edit and Spell-Check”
The former first lady reminded a crowd in Canada that it’s “never a good idea” to “tweet from bed.”
Whether or not you think that it’s about time Michelle Obama joins the growing number of those now explicitly calling out Donald Trump, it’s undeniable that she’s proven herself a master at doing so without ever explicitly saying his name, honing her abilities at doing so since discussing a certain unnamed bully at the National Democratic Convention last summer.
She appeared to get more explicit than ever, though, during her first-ever solo speech in Canada, a talk called “The Economics of Equality: Advancing Women and Girls to Change the World” that she gave on Tuesday to a sold-out crowd of 3,000. Hours before Trump ended up logging onto to Twitter at around 6:00 a.m. the next morning to share sensational videos of Muslim people apparently committing acts of violence that were made by a British ultranationalist group—a move that was quickly condemned by Britain’s prime minister—Obama made the ever timely decision to devote part of the conversation to social media etiquette, especially for those who are public officials.
It’s “never a good idea,” Obama told the crowd, to put your first thoughts upon waking on social media, or to ever “tweet from bed”—a practice Trump has long been known for, sharing inflammatory thoughts and announcements that even those close to him have had to denounce upon waking. (Case in point: that time he announced that there would be a ban on transgender people serving in the military, which his administration’s lawyers later contradicted in court.)
“You need to edit and spell-check,” Obama continued, apparently alluding to Trump’s infamous typos—it took him three attempts, for example, to get this tweet about the country healing right, first spelling “heel” as “heal”—and let’s not forget that time he temporarily broke the internet when he inexplicably tweeted the word “covfefe.”
Michelle Obama Might Be the Best Dressed First Lady Since Jackie O
Michelle Obama in Alexander McQueen at a state dinner in Washington, D.C., January 2011.
Michelle Obama in Azzedine Alaïa in Baden-Baden, Germany, April 2009.
Michelle Obama in Ralph Lauren in London, England, May 2011.
Michelle Obama in Michael Kors on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, January 2012.
Michelle Obama in Thom Browne at President Obama’s second inauguration in Washington, D.C., January 2013.
Michelle Obama in Carolina Herrera at a state dinner in Berlin, Germany, June 2013.
Michelle Obama in Marchesa at the White House Correspondents Dinner in Washington, D.C., May 2014.
Michelle Obama in Bibhu Mohabaptra at the Congressional Black Caucus dinner in Washington, D.C., September 2014.
Michelle Obama in Zac Posen at the BET Black Girls Rock! special in Newark, New Jersey, March 2015.
Michelle Obama in Mary Katrantzou in London, England, June 2015.
Michelle Obama in Christopher Kane in London, England, June 2015.
Michelle Obama in Carolina Herrera at the arrival of Pope Francis in Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, September 2015.
Michelle Obama in Vera Wang at a state dinner in Washington, D.C., September 2015.
Michelle Obama in Tanya Taylor in Washington, D.C., March 2016.
Michelle Obama in Jason Wu at a state dinner in Washington, D.C., March 2016.
Michelle Obama in Carolina Herrera arriving in Havana, Cuba, March 2016.
Michelle Obama in BCBG at the opening ceremony for the Invictus Games in Orlando, Florida, May 2016.
Michelle Obama in Naeem Khan at the Nordic state dinner in Washington, D.C., May 2016.
Michelle Obama in Hugo Boss speaking with Oprah in Washington, D.C., June 2016.
Michelle Obama in Marni in Monrovia, Liberia, June 2016.
Michelle Obama in Proenza Schouler in Marrakech, Morroco, June 2016.
Michelle Obama in Peter Pilotto in Marrakech, Morocco, June 2016.
Michelle Obama in Proenza Schouler arriving in Madrid, Spain, June 2016.
Michelle Obama in Preen in Madrid, Spain, July 2016.
Michelle Obama in Christian Siriano arriving at a memorial for police officers killed in Dallas, Texas, July 2016.
Michelle Obama in Christian Siriano at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, July 2016.
Michelle Obama in Brandon Maxwell at a state dinner honoring the first family of Singapore in Washington, D.C., August 2016.
WASHINGTON, DC – SEPTEMBER 08: First lady Michelle Obama speaks during the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities poetry reading to honor student poets at the White House, September 8, 2016 in Washington, DC. The first lady honored five students with the nation’s highest honor for teen poets presenting original work. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
Michelle Obama in Naeem Khan at the Phoenix Awards dinner in Washington, D.C., September 2016.
Michelle Obama in Self-Portrait at the Broadway Shine a Light event in New York, New York, September 2016.
Obama also carried over the conversation about social media to “young people”: “This Tweetin’ and Snapchattin’…this is generationally something that I just don’t understand. Would you take your journal, your diary and open it up in the center of the town square and let people just read it?” she asked. But first and foremost, she specifically used her expertise as a public personalityl to apparently explain why Trump’s unapproved oversharing is even more reprehensible.
“Here’s the thing people need to understand: We use social media by committee. So when we use social media, I usually think about what I want to say. I talk to my team about it. We talk about it. Then we go back and think about it. Then we do a draft of it. Then we look at it again. Then we put it down. And then we go back and we talk to some more. And then we press ‘send’—maybe. Communication requires that kind of thought and connection.”
In between more uplifting tidbits—her dream dinner guest would be Jesus, whom she would serve pizza—Obama still maintained an air of optimism when it came to Trump being in office. “One thing I’ve learned in politics: one person can’t make the change. Change is from the bottom up, not the top down, and that’s a good thing,” she said. “That means that no one person can break all this either,” she added, before going off to lunch with Canada’s first lady, Sophie Trudeau.
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