{"id":49509,"date":"2025-11-05T10:11:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T16:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=49509"},"modified":"2025-11-05T21:16:53","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T03:16:53","slug":"michelle-obama-on-east-wing-demolition-we-always-felt-it-was-the-peoples-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=49509","title":{"rendered":"Michelle Obama on East Wing demolition: \u2018We always felt it was the people\u2019s house\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Michelle Obama\u2002<\/u><\/a>is speaking out publicly for the first time about President Trump\u2019s demolition of the East Wing to build a new ballroom at the White House, saying she never thought of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. as belonging to the first family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople have asked me how I felt about the move,\u201d Obama\u2002<\/u><\/a>said during a Tuesday appearance<\/u><\/a> on CBS\u2019s \u201cThe Late Show\u201d when asked by host Stephen Colbert\u2002<\/u><\/a>about the East Wing being torn down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat I will remind people is that house is not our house,\u201d Obama said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe never viewed it as our house. We were there for a time. We had a job to do,\u201d the former first lady said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe always felt it was the people\u2019s house,\u201d Obama, 61, continued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd yes, every family, every administration, has a right and a duty to maintain the house, make investments and improvements. And there are plenty of things that needed fixing there,\u201d she told Colbert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut the thing \u2014 it makes me confused. I am confused by what are our norms? What are our standards? What are our traditions?\u201d Obama said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI just feel like, what is important to us as a nation anymore? Because I\u2019m lost,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During President Obama\u2019s time in office from 2009-17, Michelle Obama said, there were \u201ca whole standard of norms and rules that we follow to a T, that we painstakingly tried to uphold, because it was bigger than us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The country, she said, must \u201cdecide what rules are we following and who is to abide by them, and who isn\u2019t. I am lost, and I hope that more Americans feel lost in a way that they want to be found again, because it\u2019s up to us to find what we\u2019re losing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Obama\u2019s remarks come after crews demolished the East Wing of the White House last month to construct Trump\u2019s planned<\/u><\/a> $300 million ballroom. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump, who has said that the 90,000-square-foot ballroom will be built with private donations, told reporters in October that the East Wing had to be razed in order to \u201cproperly\u201d complete the construction project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During her \u201cLate Show\u201d interview, when Colbert mentioned the East Wing, Obama quipped, \u201cRemember that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Obama described the East Wing, built in 1942 during Franklin D. Roosevelt\u2019s presidency and which provided space for the first lady\u2019s staff as well as other offices, as \u201cwhere life happened.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe West Wing was work \u2014 sometimes it was sadness, it was problems. It was the guts of the White House,\u201d Obama, author of the new book \u201cThe Look,\u201d said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe East Wing was where you felt light.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

thehill<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michelle Obama\u2002is speaking out publicly for the first time about President Trump\u2019s demolition of the East Wing to build a new ballroom at the White House, saying she never thought of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. as belonging to the first family. \u201cPeople have asked me how I felt about the move,\u201d Obama\u2002said during a Tuesday appearance on CBS\u2019s \u201cThe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":49510,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5780],"tags":[2554,28777,2270],"class_list":["post-49509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-livehood","tag-east","tag-michelle","tag-obama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49509"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49512,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49509\/revisions\/49512"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/49510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}