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She was able to get out, walked to the side and i had a broken ankle but didnt know it, for a few days. Another car came up, a man got out of the car and went to the person lying on the ground, my friend judy said that is the persons father on the ground, no, i said it couldnt be, that is mister bassett. When we got taken to the hospital we were in a room with a cloth draped separating us, judy and i were, we had very minor injuries, no one was there with us. I could hear mrs. Douglas crying on the other side of the curtain. And then when i got home that was just a huge tragedy and a life lesson that is a very hard lesson to learn that i learned early, things that happened to you, you cause things to happen if you could take it back you would but there is never anything you can ever do about it and it is just a fact and you have to accept it with whatever grace you can accept it with. Host you hadnt talked about it. Guest i had. In the 2000 race when it came out in the newspapers i was asked about it several times. I reread an article opera did in her own magazine after we moved to the white house and she asked me about it. It was in that article but i was never asked about it that often so i never really talked about it. People knew because i would get letters from Family Members of a young person who had been involved in a car accident where there was a death and get medicine teachers, parents, and send uncles and asked me to write to the young person, words of encouragement so i did and i would always suggest they get some kind of counseling, talk to a pastor, get a counselor and find some sort of help but i didnt do that and no one ever suggested it. No one really talked about it. Reagan and i talked about it. It was something we swallowed. Host the whole town new. Guest of course. Host did that in some way help when you met george bush that he knew and you didnt have to talk about it . I wanted him to know. I didnt know he was ever going to run for office but in case that would ever in some way affect his political run. Host it was important about you. Your daughters married someone they just met. Guest i would think that was really reckless. But i will say my parents were thrilled and barbara and george were, they were very glad he had found somebody, they were hoping for grandchildren. I was 31 the night before we got married, they really had the advantage. We had the same backgrounds, we had grown up just blocks from each other but i went to jamesville and we lived in the same apartment complex he was in without ever running into each other so it was like weve known each other our whole lives. We knew all the same people. There werent any surprises. Ever . Wasnt something in our background the other didnt know about. One of the things that might be a surprise, he was running for congress. That was really fun, he was running for congress, the congressman i interviewed with. Congressman man such a hairdo, he had taught us where to sit and not to get your hair blown. He was retiring in 1978 so george thought why not try to run for it, the seed had only been held by congress in may and as long as they did that so that is what it is and we travel up and down the panhandle of texas, it was a big district and it included lover, a big town, two or youll towns and the rest was rural farming and all the way up to that. Im not sure this is right but i remember you telling me a story, you asked about a speech and have some water. You said the speeches were terrific but you decided to give a little critique and then what happened . Guest when george was running for congress his mother gave me some advice and said dont criticize georges speeches, she said she criticized her georges be and he came home for weeks later with letters saying it was the best speech he had ever given. I took it to heart and endeavor criticize him and one time we were driving home into our driveway after a Campaign Event and george said tell me the truth, how was my speech and i said it wasnt very good. He drove into the garage wall. [applause] [laughter] host wellknown for taking criticism well. Before we jump forward into political life i want to go back to your child a little bit because you write about it so interestingly. Your father coming home from the war was tiny pictures of concentration camps. Why did he do that . The timberwolves had liberated one of the concentration camps and he came home with a little photograph that would have been in world war ii, the body they found. They there were 5000 dead when they liberated, the story is the american troops went in and put their faces in their hands and wept. My dad never talked about it, we would look at them but he didnt talk about it. My mother told me a story he told her which was he was just sort of impressed with an army nurse, he remembered an army nurse standing with a shovel and handing it to one of the germans that was still there when they liberated ignored house and he said i am an officer and she took a shovel and hit him across the bottom and said dig and he did. What he was digging were graves, big trenches really. Then later, many years later when i was in progress for a nato meeting i was preceded by holocaust survivor and we started talking and i told him my dads company had liberated courthouse, he said he had been in a concentration camp and i said my dad never talked about it and he said i never talk to my children about it either and he thought like i thought that it was too terrible to tell, that you couldnt admit to your own children that mankind could be that cruel but he said we always kept those pictures. Host what was your reaction when you heard about holocaust deniers . Guest that is terrible to hear about, it really is, crazy is what it is. It just happened we went to the day of remembrance at the capital, the day of remembrance, george was president and mother happens to be there, after the easter break and if you have ever been to the day of remembrance go sometime because it is very meaningful, soldiers marching with the flag of all the American Companies that liberated concentration camps. We didnt know to expect that. We havent been there for that so we see these flags come in and they were thinking what did the flag look like . It came by, the timberwolves and the wolfs head that is the timberwolf flag. We both burst into tears to see that flag of daddys go by. Host you had letters from the war. Do you always know about those . Guest i knew mother had those letters but i never read them. When i started to work on the book, i drove around and looked at all the houses. My mother lives there but i dont always drive around and look at the houses my daddy build, the homebuilder or the houses we lived in, every time he opened a new addition he would build a new house bar so he lived in several houses and he drove by the house george and i lived in, i had barbara and jenna the years we lived in and i read the letters, i had not read them. I always knew they were his love letters, they were newly married and he had been shipped overseas but i always felt she didnt want me to read them. There was something private about them and personal but then i read some of them and they were private and personal and i did feel a little bit like a voyeur reading it. But it was fun and interesting and fun to think of these young people in love and separated by the war. Host your mother lost three other babies which was a great tragedy in her life and with barbara and jenna you were very frightened. Mother lost my first memory, the western clinic in midland and ive never seen a baby, just a member thinking thats where my baby was and i was very aware this was the big disappointment of their life that they didnt get to keep those 3 other babies and have a family of four instead of an only child and not just one but four children. I was said too and that was my wish on a star to have a brother or sister. This wonderful picture of you, if you dont have it. What happens next . This is where we let barbara and jenna, standing with the photo for the cake and bite into it and when we remove the cake they link the cups of coffee and they never had sugar, they had their first birthday. But you had to go to dallas. I struggled to get pregnant and when i did i was so thrilled to have a sonogram and found out there were two babies. I was hoping my children would have a sister or brother and they got to have each other. It was a high risk pregnancy. I was 35, twin pregnancy so close to the end of the pregnancy i got preeclampsia toxemia and was sent into dallas where there was an intensive care nurse. They thought the babies would need an intensive care nurse which they didnt. When they were born it was big for 5 weeks early but it was a worry the whole time and mothers losses. Host you lost that race to congress and you got involved in the 1980 campaign and suddenly your father is Vice President , celebrity by association and suddenly you were somebody. Guest in midland so i would be working in the yard, thank you very much and they drive by really slowly and from out of town driving by, the Vice President s son. Host when he ran for president you moved up here as you were saying earlier. Guest we lived here in 1987 to work on mister bushs campaign after the price of oil had fallen, midland was a boom and bust town, the oil business, when the price of oil was high everybody, high cotton i guess and when it went down go through a bust there was one shortly before that so george was able to sell his oil company and we worked on mister bushs campaign and it was the first time in the 10 years george and i had been married that that i was ever with his mother a lot. Every time i visited her in maine when all the other kids were there and other grandchildren were there, highly stressed with all that. Her line about when things get really tense grabbed the bottle of aspirin and do what it says on the bottle, take 2 and keep away from children. [laughter] guest when we lived up here that year, running for president , he had never gone during the week they made them, to come home on sundays to get there and had a hamburger lunch which was the family condition every sunday and i got to know barbara for the first time and i am sure she got to know me and she had five children. I sent her to welcome me with open arms like mother welcome george, he was the only one. But then we got to know each other and love each other and love the same things, she loved to read. That year and a half we lived here we get up in the morning on saturday morning and an art show that was here at the smithsonian or somewhere else, she called me because she was the Vice President s wife, 30 minutes early by ourselves but it was a wonderful chance for george and me both to have a relationship, set for barbara and jenna and it was i was glad to live in the same chance the same town with them. By the end of his presidency host you are seeing things on television, reading things that were not true that were such mischaracterizations of him and your husband goes and runs for governor. Were you distressed that more politics was going to be in your life . Guest not really. Really politics is the family business. You know this. When you have a Family Member in politics and everyone is in it together you have opponents, you are in it together, the year george and i traveled in texas was really great, we did everything together, rode in the car together every day, i was fine with it. I had a good time. If you win that and lose life goes on, it is not the end of your life if you lose a political race and i knew that so when george wanted to run for governor i used to say after that congressional race you think george will never run again for office and are used to joke and say maybe when we are 50 and we were close to 50 and he ran host a long time away. Guest that was my hesitation when he wanted to run for president. Running for governor is a big job but the media is the scrutiny in me, criticism and attacks are not near what they are when you run for president. Host you knew that, really taken by surprise. We knew it because watching mister bush especially in the 92 campaign but in the 88 campaign as well. Host after your husband was elected governor your father got terribly sick and you saw your mother in the role of caretaker. I wonder how you reacted to that, being distant from her having to take down that role . He got alzheimers and got worse and worse, never got so bad he didnt know me. On the last thanksgiving before he died which was after george had been elected governor but before the inauguration we went to midland and spent that thanksgiving with him and at one point daddy said that is over there and that is my husband george bush, he said you married george bush, i said yes. And he said i will ask you for a loan. And then he laughed. That was so funny. Host the first lady started a few things in texas. In washington able to bring it here starting with the book festival. Guest i started the texas book festival. It is in its fifteenth or sixteenth year, it is hugely successful, very popular with authors, others love to get invited to austin. It is really fun and that is held inside the Texas Capital building and the only way we got to do that was george was governor and the speaker of the house, the texas house is the group that oversees the Capital Building and they dont let anyone else meet in the Texas Capital and i understand that but they still allowed us to have the book festival in the capital so for one weekend a year the Texas Capital is turned over to literature. So the readings on the senate floor and the house floor and the Committee Hearing rooms and auditoriums, there are a lot of sizes, authors who wont draw big crowds, it has been successful. We sell the books outside the Capitol Grounds because you cant sell things on the grounds, the Capitol Grounds, we made the book festival into a fundraiser. Weve given grants to every texas Public Library. [applause] host you got involved with arts and education, Family Protective Services and you came here as first lady and immediately got the book festival going, the National Book festival which we still have going and you were very involved in the literature and Early Childhood education, the things you learned a great deal about in texas, you started to concentrate on as first lady. At the capital on september 11th ready to testify before the Senate Education committee on Early Childhood education, tell us what happened next. Guest i got in my car that morning, to brief the Senate Education committee on Early Childhood education. I didnt have the tv on. I was looking at my briefing and i was very nervous, the first year he was president in 2001. As i was getting in the car the secret Service Agent leaned over to me and said a plane has just flown into the world trade center. I was getting in the car with margaret spelling and andy ball who was chief of staff at the time and we had no idea what was transpiring. When we got in the car into the capital we assumed it was just some weird accident, some terrible accident that a plane had thrown into the trade center but on the way to the capital we get a message about the second plane, so we know then that it is a terrorist attack. I go to senator kennedys office, hes waiting for me and we go to his office and he starts to give me a tour of his office and shows me all the mementos on his wall including a letter from his brother jack that had written to their mother when they were little. That teddy was getting fat and he was still amused after all these years at this cute letter but the whole time he kept up this small talk and i thought about it over and over that it was a defense mechanism because he had so many shocks in his own life that he kept up his small talk so that we didnt start to talk about what had happened and what this meant for all of us or if he thought i would fall apart and so he was just trying to keep everything in this sort of pleasant smalltalk way. We did go out. Senator judd gregg joined us, one of our closest friends who had been at the ranch that summer because he had played out gore for the debate prep. Host the son of a senator. Guest exactly. So judd joined us and he and i would look at each other because we were looking over senator kennedys shoulder to look at the television, the Small Television in the corner of the office and we were sick and we felt sick. I thought judd looked sick and im sure he thought i was sick too because we couldnt imagine. It was a blessing that senator kennedy kept up the smalltalk, a way to process what we were seeing and what it meant and the three of us went out and spoke to the press, we were postponing the briefing, already was in defiance of the terrorists. We would not cancel the briefing, it would just be postponed and as we finished saying we were postponing the meeting, the briefing, Lawrence Mcclellan from usa today said what do we say to the children . That is when i got the idea of what do we say to the children and i said then, parents need to assure their children they are safe, turn off the television and dont let them watch over and over the buildings falling but it gave me the direction of what i did, the letters that i wrote 2 High School Students and another letter for younger students about what had happened and what they could do for each other, how we needed to take care of each other but also host your great passion for the women of afghanistan. You have been there to 70 countries and youre still working on that issue and continue to work on that issue. Host i will work on that forever and what happened was as everyones eyes turn to afghanistan the women of the United States were so shocked by the contrast between the lives of women in afghanistan and our lives, we couldnt believe it. We couldnt imagine a government that would prevent girls from being educated and immediately i heard from women all over the country, they are unbelievable stories was one woman that i know whose husband was the president of the university and she said she would lie in bed at night and think what can i do to help women and one day at donald on her, she could write other president s of universities and say can you give afghan young women. It should that include everything so they can come over here and to be educated and go home and help build our country and she did. She has been still to this day in a number of universities and i spoke to the first graduating class of afghan women at that university four years later and that is just one of so many ways american women mentor afghan women help them in some way to make sure they could one day enjoy the freedoms we all enjoy. Host you were out there advocating all of them and after the invasion the first person other than a president to have gone to the microphone for the weekly radio address and defend the women of afghanistan, womens rights are human rights and tell the story of being in a Department Store after that and someone understanding, i love the fact that you told me Lady Bird Johnson said to you i have a podium. Host i knew what she said and she did use her podium, she really did. Speaking of Lady Bird Johnson i always admired her so much because she was a texas first lady and i knew what an impact she had on our country, something i was interested in partly because my mother was a naturalist and interested in wildflowers and plants that lady bird started with the whole use of plant in the landscape and we thank her for the daffodils that bloom on rock creek and for all those bonnets on the side of the road in texas that i saw they are blooming there but toward the end of Lady Bird Johnsons life her daughter called me and said her mother was going to make one more trip to washington and like lyndon, knew it would be her last trip to washington and she wondered if she could bring her to the white house and i was thrilled for her to come. She was in a wheelchair, she had a stroke, no longer spoke but she still had that wonderful twinkle in her eye, very expressive movements. Something she would remember, she put her hands together and when we went to look at president johnsons portrait put her arms out to him. It was very sweet and i was so glad to have that chance to show her the white house and walk around the white house with her and the room on the ground floor where a lot of those, shes wearing a yellow gown and when we redid the really adjusted the color to be the yellow that was the color of the gown she was wearing. I was at texas when Lyndon Johnson died, in graduate school and lady bird and lyndon, his body lay in state at the lbj library, we stood in line, had to walk through and pay my respects and shook their hands never imagining i would ever do that again. Host i want to ask one last thing of my own which is you did this work for the afghan women in africa, you became a passionate advocate for freedom in burma writing opeds and going to the White House Briefing room and grabbing the microphone, the first time that has happened and calling for the overthrow of the regime of burma. It was not exactly sitting and pouring t. I know you are gracious in this answer about why people didnt understand how forceful you had been as a first lady and put you in some sweet wife category. Im not saying you are not. The same with Lady Bird Johnson. Instead of being a leader in the environmental movement, the founders of the Us Environmental Movement which she was. She was thought of as a lovely little lady in white flowers. It is what happens and it is a shame that somehow these stereotypes start and our first ladies are seen as 1dimensional because they are always so much more complex and interesting than those views of them and certainly barbara bush who was a nice grandmother and instead is such a strong willed and fascinating woman. Host it is true of martha washington. But i wonder if you think it is a press bias against people who didnt like your husband . Host that is part of it, no doubt about that. That is part of it for sure. I think we are slowly moving away from that. Host these are very lively written. This is a Good Opportunity to talk about the center, the institute. George and i are building the bush library and museum and institute at smu and we have already started the programming for the institute which will be a policy institute. We are no longer into politics which we are focused on the four areas we spent the most time on which our human freedom, education and opportunity and compassion. I have already hosted the Womens Council there. A new minister of Womens Affairs came from afghanistan. We did videoconferencing into afghanistan the minister of education, the Us Ambassador to afghanistan. The afghan ambassador was with us in dallas along with several afghan scholars, some other afghan women who were running projects in afghanistan and the new woman director, secretarygeneral, bulgarian came, they are very active and the us afghan Womens Council was focused on literacy for afghan women so i want to keep working on that. I hope the United States will stand with afghanistan. It is really important. If they dont they will go back to what they were and it is important especially for the women. I met with a group of Afghan Parliamentarians right before george and i left and one of them said this is our only chance and if i cant make it now we wont be able to. In afghanistan. Host lisa from texas. Did you ever cook when you were in the white house . Guest no. [applause] guest i havent cooked in 15 years. We had a chef, wonderful chef at the white house, ive never been a very good cook. I love to read cookbooks and im very interested in food but im not a very good cook. Host if you could take one nonpersonal item. Guest so many, the white house has seen a magnificent art collection, so many are wonderful. Host you brought some guest acquired jacob the most expensive acquisition the white house ever made. Not the most expensive items there but the big George Washington would be considered priceless. Men of all races to gather. They work to gather and build the country and since my father was a builder it had a special personal memory, something very tangible about being a builder and you have something tangible, they built that house. Something satisfying about that. Host as a Military Spouse i always wondered how you and your husband found time to visit our troops and our Wounded Warriors now that you are no longer doing first lady duty are you and your husband god bless you and simplify. Guest so sweet, thank you. Host we did visit the Wounded Warriors here in walter reed at Brooke Army Medical center, in the san antonio whenever we could and at all different times, and big campaign rallies, meet with families that have fallen from those part of the country. That was a brief that is very difficult to share with these families. What i always saw was the september 11th those families we met with after the terrorist attack and the same had fallen after that. How they wanted you to know about their loved one they lost and what they wanted to do was tell stories. The one sister of someone who died in iraq had written story she read to george and me about her brother and there was something so moving about every one of those visits and how precious our country is, more men and women who followed to serve our country like the men and women of the United States military. [applause] host what advice did you give your daughters . Guest im still giving that advice to barbara. Look for Somebody Just like daddy. Host your girls are doing wonderful work. Guest thank you, jenna is a contributing correspondent on the today show. She is still teaching one day a week, in baltimore. One nonprofit called Global Health core and you can look on the web, gh for Global Health, ghcore. Org and placing college graduates, in the Health Clinics for the poor, she has fellows on the ground in malawi, tanzania and in the United States in boston and newark. Behind teach for america this is to recruit smart Young College graduates and doing things like setting up a supply chain, one of the fellows in tanzania, the supply chain, ordering and supply chain, for tanzania setting up their supply chain for antiretro viral, people in the clinics can keep up with their medications. I am proud of both of them. They are doing great. Host a question about how your inlaws are doing. Guest they are doing well too. There in dallas in my backyard with george hosting the party, georges assistant met Barbara Bushs assistant last summer and they are getting married. So tonight, for the out of town from bethesda. They are doing well enough to fly from houston, fly home on saturday night for the wedding and fly all the way to maine for the summer. Host this is a good last question. I would love you to read the end of your book, what you did not do in the white house. It is a long list but you write it so beautifully. Take it to the last paragraph. Guest we lived through four seasons, spring bloom of wild car carpets come baking heat of summer when the air shimmers and the cicada wine slows to accommodate the stifling air. Fall mornings bring in colors and a winner when we can hear the house, the rush of abiding Prairie Winds four seasons, hardly enough time to reflect on eight years. There was a blacklist shop on one of the main streets, today or news is disseminated via blog but each morning when i watch over the eastern hill cutting through the tree line and illuminating general perry grasses and the two young shade trees that white house staff gave, i am reminded of the joy to be found in the day that is coming. The president ial library at Southern Methodist university in dallas, the george w. Bush institute, pursuing many of the causes that were dear to me in the white house. I am eager to advocate for womens rights and Womens Health through a special womens initiative, looking at new ways to help the women of afghan stand in the middle east and promote millions for whom alphabets are a ministry and basic addition of complex customs and through the institute we will help to promote basic human freedom for these women and their families but as much as i treasure my public life i also treasure the quiet of my private one. Some time during the first spring and summer in texas i began to feel the buoyancy of my own newfound freedom. After nearly eight years of hypervigilance of watching for the next danger or tragedy that might be coming i could at last exhale. I could simply be. When i raised my eyes to the sky to see the drift of the clouds, the brightness of the moon and the ever shifting arrangements of the stars, look up, laura, i can still hear my mother say with a hint of our and wonder. [applause] host thank you so much. [applause] host thanks so much. [applause] you are watching booktv on cspan2. We are looking at books written by former first ladies. Up next is Michelle Obama. She was first lady from 20092017 and her memoir becoming was the bestselling book of 2018 and still remains on bestseller lists today. According to books published at random house, becoming sold 10 million copies worldwide during its First Six Months of sale. The book was released in november of 2018 but it was in june of that year she previewed the book in a talk with carla hayden, librarian of congress, this is from the American Library Association Meeting in new orleans. Now the person you all came to see. Michelle robinson obama. [applause] she is a lawyer, she is an author and she is the wife of the 40 fourth president of the United States, barack obama. [applause] throughout her initiatives as first lady she has become a role model for women and girls and an advocate for healthy families, Service Members and their families, Higher Education and international adolescent girls education. Her muchanticipated memoir becoming will be published in the us and canada on november 13th, 2018, by crown, a division of Penguin Random house and will be released simultaneously in 24 languages. Considered one of the most popular first ladies. [cheers and applause] mrs. Obama invites readers into her world chronicling the experiences that have shaped her from her childhood on the south side of chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, her time spent at the worlds most famous location. Warm, wise and revelatory, becoming is a deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has defied expectations and whose story inspires us to do the same. We are also fortunate to have librarian of Congress Carla Hayden hosting the conversation with mrs. Obama today. Carla hayden was nominated to the position of library of congress by president barack obama in february of 2016 and her nomination was confirmed by the u. S. Senate in july of 2016. She was sworn in as the fourteenth library of congress in september of 2016. Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden and first lady mrs. Obama come together for an in depth conversation around her forthcoming memoir becoming in the experiences that have impacted her life, her family and her country. Michelle obama. [applause] thank you so much. A lot of librarians today. A lot of librarians here. You guys looking good. Hi, carla. Host hi. How are you . How are you . There have been many thrills but to be the librarians sitting here with you is wonderful. I am getting a little i am the interviewers so i have to. Remember our days in city hall. A baby professional, you shouldnt be nervous. What a professional you were, the Public Library was part of your portfolio and it made such a difference to have somebody that understood libraries, that Read Everything in government like that. That wasnt shade, not at all, just making a point. I was coming back from Academic Experiences so we go way back and what i mentioned, it has been a big part. Absolutely. We are readers, the obamas. We started reading to the girls when they were babies, infants. As a little kid i loved to read aloud. I was one of those kids who would set up stuffed animals and barbies and read to them and show the pictures and go back. I loved the act of reading aloud so when i had kids they became my real babies i could read to so i read to them all the time, all the time. I know every word of every dr. Seuss anything by heart and as the girls grew up we continued to incorporate books as a form of Family Activity so as they got older we started reading more complex books together so barack and melia read all the harry potter books aloud from front to back and then she could see the movie after they read it so that was their ritual. You want the father to have a thing they do. I dont know anything about harry potter because i wasnt going to get involved in that so that is a thing. When sasha got older i read life of pi with her and then we saw the movie and we were big, family readers. We loved calvin and hobbes, we were a big calvin and hobbes family. Reading was part of the way we put our kids to sleep at night. I felt music reading culture was part of their development from very early on. We are big big readers. Host one of the images in the white house when there was holiday time would be going to the bookstore. Getting books as gifts. Host that is all barack does, thats the only place he knew how to go as president. He could golf and he could get to the bookstore. Those were the two things he felt comfortable doing outside the white house but that was an annual ritual, to go to one of the bookstores for the holidays. In chicago the 50 seventh street bookstore, that was our Neighborhood Store we like to go to. Bookstores and libraries were a big part of our life, big part of my wife early on. I remember my First Experience going to the library. I was 4. It was the First Official time i got a id. You felt like a bigtime person getting your name on it and i remember going to the library in our neighborhood 3 blocks from our house and my mom who was a housewife, that is where she would take us and that is my first major big girl thing i could do to get my library card and stands counter high watching them put me into the official files, i felt really important. I didnt have a wallet or purse but i felt special to have it and it was a community space, for all of you it is a major part of any community, that is the place for our family to go to get those early dick and jane books, bar bar the elephants, go to the childrens corner where the colorful titles were and i felt i would graduate by going upstairs when it was darker and the jackets were maroon or blue where the serious books where. Host you ever get to go . Guest oh yes. Than the library became more research papers, dewey decimal system, only here, what do we get . A shout out for the dewey decimal system. I love you all, i do. Host you continued in graduate school and all of that in your life got busy year. How do you find time to read for pleasure . We all want to know. Did you read anything for pleasure . Guest yes. There were moments of escape. Today, however, i am spending most of my time selfishly focused on my book so that is what i am reading. It is almost ready. Ive been immersed in that process so this year has been tougher for me because im trying to stay in my voice but when i do have time i have my chief of staff melissa who by the way is more excited to be here than she was to be to meet bruce springsteen. Melissa is my book recommender, she loves you all. I may lose her in this convention center, she might leave me. She has been with me from the beginning of the campaign but she is my book guru. I usually lead that is read what melissa tells me i should read. Throw some books in my bag on a long trip. I have a very eclectic sort of reading list. I have read commonwealth. I love a good story that takes me outside of myself. I love everything ladysmith has done. White teeth. I accidentally reread that. I reread it two years ago and it was on my shelf and i thought have i read this . I am thinking i must have something, i know what is going to happen on the next page. This is how my life is, the past decades i would forget what i have read but i read it. I realized by the third chapter that i had read it already but i finished it. I love her storytelling, her characters. I just finished reading exit west which was very good, very powerful. The nightingale i read the other day, in the shadows for the nightingale. I love all of her stuff. I love stories, i love to escape for a moment. I needed that escape over the past we 10 years, to get out of my own story. Get into somebody elses story for a minute. I couldnt tell the difference. I would wake up and be an hour and i thought when i was asleep thats how the white house years felt. Usually on a longer trip i could get into a book but it was a hectic eight years. Host you said pick up a book. That implies the physical book. What about ebook . Guest im not in the reader. I like to have a book in my hand. [applause] even in my writing process i like to hold it. I cant really edit things on the computer well. I feel like i have to write down my thoughts. I can jot down things on an iphone, but thats hard. I have to feel it. I have to still be able to touch it. Im old, sorry. [laughing] we still have a lot of books in our house. My husband who as you know is an avid reader and still loves books around. Everywhere we have gone boxes and boxes of books that i cant get rid of. He will not allow me to do it. We are still household, we have books on shelves, lots of books on shelves. Host you know as as a libry and i did some research, and i understand that theres a library, you actually worked in a Library Bindery . Guest yes, i worked in a ina book bindery one summer, bob goldman book bindery. I did. It was a some right before i went to college. Had a friends mother who worked there and was my first real job before that i did the neighborhood jobs, babysitting. I had a family next to us they paid me to do everything for them. They visit, trained a dog, tutor piano. The smiths, i loved them. They got me through high school. But then i graduated to a job downtime, the bindery was downtown and a friends mother worked there. My job entailed doing one thing a thousand times every day all day over and over again. So i got to put the little metal thing in a hole and then pass the cardboard over to the guy that would slam it down. So my job was to take the metal thing, pleaded in the hole and pass it. And i was good, good with doing that, for the first day even. [laughing] i thought, you know, i was aiming at finishing it. I thought there would be in into it, like thousands of them and i would prove to the bindery people that have so fast i i cd complete it and i would be done. I just realized its never over. They just kept coming, the little pieces of cardboard and the Little Things and that went on for weeks and weeks and weeks doing the same thing. I just thought my god, im ready for college. I can do this. But it taught me Great Respect for the men and women who do that work every day, that thankless work that makes it possible for us to have books and folders. I learned work ethic at the bindery. The dozens of people in the plant who came there and he did the same job every day for years and years and years. It reminded me of my father, those who color workers who didnt look for passion in their jobs. A didnt have the luxury like we did to think about doing the things that we loved. They had to do things that put food on the table. That was my First Experience shoulder to shoulder with men and women who were making a living for the families. Host you mentioned your father so many times about his work ethic and what it took for him to go to work and provide you things. You side firsthand trencher my father, frazier robinson, he was every value i have came for my mother and father and watching them daytoday. As most people know my father was bluecollar worker, work the same job his entire life to worked at the Water Filtration plant and my father had ms and contracted it at the prime of his life so i never knew him to get to walk without the assistance of a cane. My father got up every day was a shift job. Some days he was on days come some cases on nights, some days he was on evenings so his schedule changed and i remember him putting on his white tshirt and is blue button that uniform and dating his crutches and making his way up the back door to the car to go to his job without complaint, without regret because he was proud that he had a job that allowed him to invest in his children, me and my brother. With that bluecollar salary put two of us through college, and princeton at that, any make se that [applause] and those were, we went to those schools long before they had Financial Assistance that put you completely through. We were still paying, my parents had to pay a portion of our tuition and he made sure our tuition was paid on time. We never were going to be late and not be able to register for classes. So who i am today is so much of, its because my parents and that hard work ethic and the values of your word is your bond, you do what you say youre going to do, you know, trust is important, honor, honesty. I saw my father behave in that way every single day with everyone regardless of race or station in life. So thats who i think about when i write my book and how i carry myself in the world. I do what i think marion and fraser would expect me to do. I hope to be that person for them. [applause] host my mom is out here. Trencher hey, mom. Host sorry. And so whenever anything happens, she says, mrs. Robinson. Shes modeled after your mom and how your mom handle all of that. Your mom was right there with you trencher grandma, you know, we couldnt have made it through the white house without her. Just having her shed been helping me long before coming to the white house because barack was always, he was a state senator and then u. S. Senate, and those are jobs that had him away from home, usually most of the week. And i still had a fulltime job. I was at any point in time i was a professional with a big job of my own and we had two little kids. We could afford health and help, and we had a couple great babysitters but that time i lost the one great babysitters and that crushed me like nothing else, i mean, when she said she had to leave because she couldnt, i thought of losing an arm. Iraq was trying to console me, and im like dude, just get out of here, you are of no help to me. I need her, not you. You do nothing for me. [laughing] but i remember that pain and i thought how can i go to work everyday and i know that my kids are good, that there was somebody who loves them . Which is not to get on a soapbox which is what affordable childcare is so important because so many [applause] having access to the kind of security for all of the families out there who dont have a choice, they have to go to work, i know that pain of what it feels like when you dont know your kids are good. And good, not just being safe but they are in a place where somebody loves them and is going to instill values in them and is going to read to them and take them to the library that is not just going to plop them in front of the tv. So i was about to quit working and i thought i just cant do it, i cant keep up the balance. And to step in but my mom who was not yet retired but she would come over at the crack of dawn to allow me to go to the gym. She would start getting the kids ready for school. She would wake them up, fix breakfast. I would come back, grabbed them, taken to school. She would go to work. She would get off, come and pick them up, get them home, start dinner. By that time i would get home. We had our routine down, and theres just something about having your mom in the place where you know she will kill someone for her grandchildren. [laughing] so she was a grandmother at the pickup line. She was going to be the first one at the pickup line because she didnt want her little grandbabies Walking Around wondering where their ride was she would get there an hour before pickup to be the first car so that she would see her babies, to bring the near, bring them here. You cant pay for that. So we brought that energy with us to the white house and we needed it, that kind of nononsense solid tell it like it is, im impressed with everything kind of personality that is Marian Robinson, you know, she did not want anybody doing her laundry at the white house. She could give her laundry just fine. She was notorious we had housekeepers and butlers and everything, at the white house and she was like dont touch my underwear. Ive got it. [laughing] too old for that. Host my moms role model trencher and she taught the girls to do their laundry so they had laundry duty with grandma. [applause] host she really helped keep them grounded trencher she kept the whole white house grounded. [laughing] and everybody used to go up to her room, a the butlers, the staff can they would be in the chit chatting with her shooting the breeze, getting some wisdom, telling their story. She just had a whole little counseling session up there in her suite of rooms. She kept us humble and focused on what was important, and she was my sounding board. Anytime anything crazy happened over the course of the day, the first thing i would do her suite of rooms were on the third floor above us and i would go and sit on her couch. She would have on msnbc or something and she would be try not to talk about what was on the news until i cannot let her know i was ready to talk about it. She would do what she always did, sit there and just listen and go and then what . Because my mother was not going to solve your problems for you. She was going to listen and she would say what you think about that next and then you would figure it out and by the time you leave you would say i feel great. So much of my ability to get out there again and again and again had to do with going up to the little counseling room and sitting and having Marian Robinson go youll be fine, just go on back down there. [laughing] cant stop now. Host did you ever tell you you know, you talk about that a lot. What are you going to do . Did you ever say you talk about that a lot. What are you going to do about it . Guest no. My mother, and i write about this about how i my parents had a really advanced sense of parenting at a very early age. They taught us how to advocate for ourselves very early. So her expectation was like, you know how to fix your problems. You know what to do. Would you teach kids at an early age that they have a voice that is worth listening to, number one, and that their opinions actually matter and thats with the get date in and day out at home at the dinner table two adults listening intently and asking questions and encouraging kids to contribute, that was e household, those were our dinner tables. So when you came home from school with a problem you could air it by just go back and solve it. At 40, 50 years old, my mother wasnt assuming that all she needed to solve any problems i had as first lady. Her expectations were you will do this and you will do this well because you know how to do this. So there was never any need for her to even pretend like she had to give me directions. She knew she had instilled those values in the when i was four and five and seven. So she had done the work. Host what a blessing. You mentioned you almost thought about quitting because you did have come and and i dont knoww many people realize highpowered positions you had as a career woman, i mean, to balance that. Guest before i was first lady . Drama yes. Guest i have a job before i was first lady, everyone. Tremont pretty highpowered one. Guest sometimes i had big jobs. I was really, i was smart, was, continue to be. [applause] thats why sometimes when i repeat the question, how did you know what to do as first lady . Like, okay, i went to princeton, harvard law, was a lawyer, worked in the city, worked with carla working on the library. Worked on planning and economic utility, was Vice President of a hospital. I dont know, i just, maybe it was osmosis, i dont know. [applause] host you were able to use some of those experiences. Guest i didnt come to the position of first lady a blank slate, that sort of what happens in society, you become a spouse all of a sudden. I talk about this in the book of how i felt myself becoming a spouse. I i went from being an executive to becoming a spouse, one of the first things people talk about was what shoes is she wearing . Like no, no, people, not you are not focusing on my shoes, right . Im standing in front of military families. We are doing important things but, so yes, there were moments in my profession because the burden of child rearing fell on me as a woman. There was a part of my trajectory as my husband ascent got faster and higher and louder, there was the challenge of how do i make sure that my kids are saying and i have career. But yeah, that started very early, those doubts and questions of how do you balance it all, and is it fair that we are and his rocketship ride when i have one, too . But that something i write about. Thats what you learn, the balance in marriage. I tell young people this all the time particularly young women is that what ive learned is that you can have it all but you usually can have it all at the same time, and thats a myth that even having the expectation of having it all is set up for young people, young couples, young men and women with children, the notion that youre not successful if you dont have it all. Its hard to balance it all, but i started to learn that life is long and there are tradeoffs that you make. I think the tradeoff of stepping off of my path until these i found a childcare solution that worked for me, which was my mom, i entertained the notion of stepping off my track because i felt like i had two kids and i brought them here, so my First Priority is to make sure that they are okay. I cant save the world if my household isnt solid. [applause] but the other thing i learned at that point in time when i was ready to jump off the professional track, i started not caring what people thought about me professionally, so i felt more freedom to ask for what i needed. So i wound up staying in my crib because i had an opportunity to become in my career kinard affairs a few versus chicago, the president was looking for a new person to head that division and i just had sasha. She was four months old and i was like not doing it, dont care, dont care about work. But what am i good friends of said you should interview because this guy is really different. I was like okay, i dont care. I was still breastfeeding so i had sasha in the crib and said we are going to interview, baby. Were going to go see this bank who wants to work for a wheelchair and were going so we needs to see all of me. I have a baby and he has been was a u. S. Senator, whatever he was doing at the time. You want to hire this . Let me tell you what it will take. I wanted this much money, i will need flexibility. I laid that whole list of demands that i knew would have them running in the other direction. [applause] because i really felt the freedom to be like if you can do this, this, this and this for me, and maybe i will think about it. He said yes to all, the whole list of all the things i asked for. And i thought wow i guess i have to try this now. But what i learned is women as individuals, you have to ask for what you need and not assume that people are going to give you what you need. [applause] and that taught me that i can define the terms of my professional life in a way that i didnt feel the freedom to do. So i thought if im going to do this im going to do it in a way that provides balance. I told folks dont expect me at every meeting. Dont expect me to come to meetings when were not doing anything because im going to the halloween parade, and thats important, and im doing my job and im doing it well at this meeting is it necessary. So i felt that freedom for the first time in my professional life to ask for what i need, knowing i was worthy of it, that i was valuable to them even in all my complicated this i was still giving them value but he had to learn to appreciate the value before i i get asked whai needed. Host and not be afraid. Guest and not be afraid at all. Host that they might say no. Guest which is easier said than done. I understand, it is not easy to tell somebody that you are worth a lot, especially for women. We had a hard time saying that about ourselves that i know my worth and i can put a monetary number on it. That there is a value to it. [applause] those are the kind of things im exploring in the book as well. Im not really just trying to pump the blood but these are things ive been thinking about for the last year, i have been reliving these things and figure out what it taught me. So im writing about all that. If i sound a little like therapy here, im in it, still in it. Host and you are having the time to be able to step back because you mention going and going. You didnt have really time to reflect as things are happening. Guest there was no time to reflect in eight years. We did so much so fast and we also knew we didnt have the luxury to make mistakes. When you are the first [applause] i mean, i lived my life as the first, the only one at the table and barack and i knew very early that we would be measured by a different yardstick. Making mistakes was not an option for us. Not that we didnt make mistakes but we had to be good. No, we had to be outstanding at everything we did. And when youre operating at that level and you are trying to live up to the expectations of your ancestors, after father, when when youre the first youre the one that is laying the red carpet down for others to follow. So yes, we were moving fast. I was starting an initiative almost every year during the eight years that i was there, and when i started an initiative there was a lot of work that went into it before hand. Because come to this work as a professional i knew that Strategic Thinking about an initiative had to happen, background work had to be done. We met, when we started lets move before we even launched it we spent a year meeting with every expert in the field. We had already developed partnerships before we had even announced it. We had focus groups. We were meeting with legislators and policymakers so that when we step out into the arena, we knew what the pitfalls would be. We do where the partnerships need to be. We knew where the holes were. That was where we were doing at the same time that youre doing state visits and halloween parties and christmas decorations, and so you are like a swan with the paddling legs underneath. That was eight years of that. So yeah, i realized there was time that something really major would happen at the beginning of the week. Lets say you met the pope or Something Like that. Host lets just say that. [laughing] guest this is the weird thing. Thats the kind of stuff we did. I met the pope, or hanging out with the queen. Okay, thats my like the car you kidding . Host that was one week. Guest could be in one week. A state visit, i first trip to africa that was my solo trip involved doing pushups with Bishop Desmond tutu. Literally, and i was like please get up. Please. [laughing] no, no, im going to do pushups. Come down, michelle. I just looked around, if something happens to me, if something happens to him, its not me. I would think pushups with bishop tutu. I gave a speech to a group of Young African women leaders. I met nelson mandela. We went on a safari. I went to botswana. Thats like four days all that can back and a separate happen in life four days. And then you go to the next week and i could literally forget everything that just happened the week before because Something Like that would be happening in the next week. So to be able to remember it all, to keep it all in your head, i would find myself forgetting. Oh, yeah, i went to prague. I literally forgot that ive been to prague, and i, i mean, we had this conversation. Somebody said what you think of prague . I said id never been to prague. My chief of staff staff said that she met her i said no to prague, ever. She was like yes, and went back and forth and it took a picture of me in prague going [laughing] you are right. I forgot all about that. I was there for two days. [laughing] thats what the pace is. You can get big major things come , not because they were not important but pickett clattered out by the next series of issues and demands. So i dont know what the question was, how we got on this. [laughing] host you forgot the question. Thats all right. So when you think about all of that and then you have the two little ones, so they might have guest i never forgot about them. Host that balance and when people are thinking about balance and how you do it, any advice for how people can try to guest theres a lot of advice for balance. My balance is crazy. Because you are the first lady but you also tried to go to the potluck and the soccer game. I tell the story about barack went to parentteacher conference, and hes got a big motorcade, its big. Its a lot of stuff and men with guns, machine guns, black sniper gear. They followed him everywhere. They are in trucks and cleaning out looking at you like i will kill you because thats their job. But when they are at sidwell fourth grade on the roof of the undergrad, of the elementary school, even believe was like, dad, come on. Everybody was sort of okay when dad didnt go. [laughing] sort of politely going you dont have to come to the fall winter concert. [laughing] its okay. Host we will take a picture. Guest you can take a pass, but i would be there and mom would be there and youre trying to be a normal parent in the midst of it, you know, when your kids are invited over for a sleepover and just explain to them we will need your Social Security number and there would be dogs sweeping your house and took when asking if you have guns and drugs and you have to tell them, sorry, mrs. , julies mom, but this is what it means to have saw ship over but its going to be fine. [laughing] but kids have fun. They learn how to work past all of that, but you are balancing. At least i was bouncing not just the act of being a mother but being the first lady of the first daughters who had their own detail all the time. So imagine trying to go to prom with eight men with guns. [laughing] and doing anything else that youre trying to do as a teenager. [laughing] with eight men with guns. Barack and and i were very hapy about it. [laughing] [applause] but we even had to learn like how do discipline them without letting them think that their agents told on them, right . All parents can you understand this. I had to live a little bit about where i got my information from. Like him how did i know that no parent was at the party . Julie is mom called and told me. [laughing] that because i got a full report in detail. Its like what are they so dumb not to know that [laughing] how do you think i knew . Those are some of our parenting scenarios. My goal as a parent was to try to make sure my kids had normalcy. Thats a different set of challenges for the average parent, but heres the thing that i learned when of the things of unbuttoning in the white house is that kids dont need that much, you know . If they know you love them unconditionally, you can live in the white house. You can live in a little bitty apartment i grew up in. Home is what you make of it inside. Its the interaction you have every day. [applause] and it doesnt have to be perfect. It can be broken and funny and odd in many ways, and our oddness was a level of dysfunction that most families will never experience but it was odd, and kids are resilient. They make it through, which is what i think about all the kids that dont make it through. Because it takes a lot to break a kid. It takes a lot but there are so many broken kids which reminds us how bad we are doing. Because you have got to do really messed up stuff to kids to send them off. They have to come from a brokenness that is so deep and off, and we have to see that in our children and understand that when kids act out there is a reason for it. Theres no such thing as bad kids. Kids are not born bad, you know . [applause] they are not. They are products of their situation. I learn to give myself a break because my kids are loved and they are going to be fine. We mess up a lot. We make a lot of wrong calls as parents, but we hold them to high standards as people. We dont measure them by things and great spirit we measure them for how the interact in the world, how do they treat their friends, how do they treat each other, insight kindness and compassion and empathy. Those are the things that we have tried to teach them over these years. [applause] and heres the thing, kids watch what you do, not what you say. So the biggest thing that barack and i could ever do to be good parents to our kids is to be good people in the world for them to see every day. [applause] and that is true whether you are the president and the first lady or your Mary Ann Fraser robinson, though standards they dont know tyler, i dont know income marian and fraser dasha thats all that kids need, fsu library is no working in the communities and you see these kids coming to your doors with such promise and they just want somebody to love them, you know . They just want somebody to tell the that they are okay. Thats one of the things i try to do as first lady with kids, why i i did so much with kids because i always thought this is the interaction that could change the kids life. This one hug, this one you are worth it. [applause] you never know what can make a difference. [applause] host right. All of this you are giving to communities. You are giving to your children, you are giving but you also, i heard you say it, that sometimes you have to put yourself first or not feel guilty about taking care of yourself. How do you do that . Guest yes, ladies. And men, too, but lets talk to the ladies a little bit on this one. Because we do that, right . We put ourselves forth on our priority list effort everybody else and we are sort of sometimes were not even on her own list at all. Its so filled with so many obligations and the guilt that we have. This is nothing new but that oxygen mask metaphor is real. You cant say someone if you are dying inside, and that death can look like somebody different things. It can be our sense of selfworth, our own physical health, our mental wellbeing, all about is, before that they that go and we dont nurture it as women, we are not good to anybody else. That is something that you have to practice and thats what had to learn. I had to learn that because i didnt see that even in my mother. My mother was one of those who didnt do anything for herself. My mother died her own hair until she turned to green and it was like mom, its green, its not working, you dont know what youre doing. Just go to the hairdresser. Shes like its fine, its just green. Host i can relate to that tragedy i remember that. Guest i remember that. I grew up with women who didnt put themselves first. I thought i want to show my girls something else. I want them to see that being a good woman out here in the world means that you are smart, you are educated, yes, you are gentle and kind and loving but you can do some pushups. You are going to think about what you put into your body, what you eat. Youre going to take time out for yourself. Youre going to invest in your relationships with your friends. I thought it was important for me, mike alsisi me having strong friendships with women in my life so i have a policy of women who keep me sane. [applause] host thats what he wanted to know about. Guest and the posse started early in my life. I always had a crew of women, a crew of girls. I had my lunchtime girls that we went over to each other so at lunchtime in grade school and play jacks and complained about the teacher, and just analyze things, watched all my children. And we got ourselves together and we are fortified and we could go back in and finish the day. That was my early group. But when my kids were young i had a really strong group of women, still do, these women are still a major part of my life and i couldnt have gotten through the early years without them he comes were all at varying stages of our professional careers. Some of us were married, some are single parents, summit husbands who traveled but every saturday we would get together and restarted when the babies were in those cradles and we would just set them down around each other in a circle so they could look at each other. [laughing] and then we talked about everything. About are they walking yet . Is supposed to be . All those questions you have as a new mother and you dont know whether you doing anything right. I was just nice to be around a group of women who are like you. We were all just messing up and it was okay. But we became our most important confidants as mothers raising kids, and our kids, all of these kids who have come up together are like cousins and they are out in the world, and they of all done well, which was another lesson that i learned. You can. All different kinds of ways. Theres no one right way to do it. Again if theres love loving consistency and foundation and security, they are going to be okay. We learned to let ourselves off the hook, and then we started doing fun stuff together like we worked out together, these same women i would a boot camp with at camp david. I want to thank these women who would, because i think if everybody healthy so like once a season i would bring into camp david and we would you like these intensive workouts, and i like eliminated wine white andf like that until everybody said they were not coming in less i put wind back on the menu so i had to put wine on their thereo not lose my friends. We would work out like three times a day, and a little navy cadet kids would be like go lower on your pushup and would be like you are just so cute. Dont call me maam. [laughing] were getting healthy together. We started doing little seminars with each other. One of my friends was an ob gyn, with Jeff Sessions on menopause and then talk about other things that i cant talk about here, but that group, that was my crew throughout the white house years, and that was a part of that self care we all felt good about and we all got stronger over the eight years. We as women, this group of women, we got physically and mentally stronger together in ways that i love my husband, you know, he is my best friend but they are more fun sometimes. [laughing] dont tell him. He doesnt know that i have more fun with them sometimes. But they gave me the kind of, the kind of fortification that he needed. I encourage Young Mothers to understand that we were not meant to parent in isolation. And so many young parents, because of, circumstances, maybe they were transferred, living away from their homes. I saw this in poetry families, young military mom would move away from her family, she would have kids, below and she would be wondering why is this so hard . I say because you are not supposed to do this alone. Children were not meant to be raised in isolation. We need community. That it does take a village. So i encourage young women to build their village. If its not at home with your mom and your cousins, and wherever you are billed that village because that will be your salvation. It keeps you sane and just keeps you and balance in a way that i think we dont appreciate. Host what about fun transit i just told you a bunch of fun we had. Host the pushups. Guest the pushups are fun, carla. [laughing] host okay. Guest so you wouldnt enjoy it like working out with me . Host i keep score. [laughing] tractor carla doesnt work because she thinks there are scores to be kept during a workout. Okay, one pushup for me and one for you. [laughing] well, we had fun. We had fun. We made sure we had fun and we wanted the white house to the place of fun. Particularly in tough times. We went through some tough times, crisis, shootings. The amount of grief that we had i wont say we were carrying it but we had to help the country get through. You can have all crisis. The country needs a moment if you like they can celebrate in some way, shape, or form even in the darkest time. So we had halloween at the white house, and kids came and mostly military kids and their families would come around the south lawn and was all decorated and the house was orange and everybody was in costume and the captive trickortreat at the white house. Any major state event that we get, whether was a state dinner or arrival we found a way to incorporate kids in that. We had a big act performing in the evening. Usually they would agree to do a separate performance or a talk or a workshop with young kids from, and we would fly them in from all over the country so they would be kids getting different experiences. The kids sat down and talked to every major star they came to the white house. We did come have the whole cast of hamilton come back and perform. [applause] and it was a very full circle moment for me, because we first met linmanuel one of the very first cultural event at the white house was the spoken word event because spoken word wrap for those of you who dont know, poetry, you know, sort of cool poetry, had never been done in the white house in the east room with george and martha standing there so we were going to do that as a first event so well find some of the hottest young voices and we get a rope line and the junket, linmanuel, came up and barack and i were what are you going to perform, young man . He said im going to do a rap about alexander hamilton. We were like [laughing] thats when you remember you are the president in the first lady, you cannot laugh in the face of your guests and go what . Are you kidding . And then he went on to perform the first number that, that was the first number he had prepared and it was obviously amazing. So afterwards we we were like, thats really good. He said yes, im going to do a whole broadway show on it and we were like [laughing] like good luck with that, kid. [laughing] and then it blew up. We invite the whole cast back and they perform come first they did hold the of workshop for kids from all over the country so they were doing lyric writing and you know, you name it. They were in the red room writing and wrapping in the blue room and dancing in the yellow and you name it, they were everywhere. Then they did the performance in the east room with all these kids who have never gotten to see the broadway performance but they all knew the words. So we had fun. We have lots of fun and all our fun always involve the kids because kids are good. They just make everything better. [applause] and we wanted to make sure that kids felt like this white house belong to them, that they felt like when you walk into it, kids of all backgrounds felt like this was a place the kids were supposed to be. Not like peering out the front gate but there were supposed to walk in those doors and experience every thing else going on in there. That was i think of all the things that we did, the work that were able to do with young people, the most fulfilling and hopefully the most impactful work we did in those eight years. Host and they felt like im wrapping in the blue room. Guest wrapping in the blue room. We did a whole Design Workshop were kids were drinking with designers and the were manikins up in we did a whole workshop. We had some of the top designers pick it was sort of a way to kind of give and a module to all the america decided who would work with me but not to do it to make it about me homage. It had to be back kids so talking for work with work with all these Young Designers around the world and were making jewelry and different rooms, and they came together for for a pl and they got to meet diane von furstenberg and all these big names came and they spent the day with these kids and it was about then but it was also about fashion. Those are the ways we tried, i tried to think about linking the stuff that people wrote about to something that was important, like okay, you like my shoes lets teach kids how to designers, what this craft means in america. [applause] that is not just that i look at what you do. All of that was fun. Fun, fun, and the kids left the like hey, i was in the white house. Guest like they were something special, im in the white house doing this. We had a Mentor Program that we never really publicized, but i i worked every you with the group of 20 girls from the area because mentoring as ive been a big part of my life. And barack as well. He had some young men that would come and come once a month. It was usually kids from the d. C. Area, not the top kids but not the kids struggling but sort of the kids that are just in the middle where there probably isnt a lot of programming for them, and they would be paired up with a highpowered women in the administration, Valerie Jarrett was a mentor, chris who was a first to go chef at the white house laura bush appointed, she was a mentor. They would meet with these kids all the time but they would come together once a month in the white house. It was interesting to see their transformation when they first start they were shy, they could look me in the eye. They were just nervous. Because it was nerveracking, youre in the white house, your meeting Michelle Obama and why would you pick and you were wondering. But we would spend time talking and eating popcorn at talk with everything. By the time they completed usually two years with us, by their Graduation Ceremony when the parents with, they felt, there was just a shift in who they thought they were. They felt comfortable in that space in that room with me. They knew that they deserved that for themselves, and as the process of just giving them that exposure on a regular basis saying you are worthy, i dont even care about your grades, who are you as as a person and youe worth being talked to, being listened to. After while they own the place. They didnt even notice me. Its like mom, thats Michelle Obama, where old friends now. Let me show you the blue room. They had a confidence and my belief for them was that if you can walk into the white house and look me in the eye and introduce yourself, there is no room you cannot go in. [applause] there is no room you cant go into after that. [applause] host right before he started there was a high schooler and she is here the first time. We hope to recruit her. There she is. Guest hello, honey. Host of course we hope she will be a librarian. But any advice you might give high school in . I dont know about college and what it what to do. Any advice . Guest how old are you . 2027370003. Guest 2027370003 20 you ao go to college, right . Thats the first advice, go to college because you need a College Education in this day and age if you want to be competitive, right . But heres the thing. There are some giveaways to get an education. We live in the United States of america and we had Wonderful Community colleges picked we have four year colleges. Theres so many ways to do it. Theres no one right way to do it, right . You dont have to go to some for your school and live in a dorm if thats not your thing. Its an excellent experience if you can do it but you have to get an education beyond high school. That is a must. A High School Diploma is not enough anymore. We want you to be the very best you can be and be able to take care of your family and where nice shoes and be all fly and have power and all that good stuff. Having and education is the key to that. Thats my advice in a nutshell. [applause] host now, i have asked about you about the book. Guest ive been talking about the book. Host its coming out in november. Guest are you guys ready . [cheers and applause] host you have to give us a few things so we can book talk it. Thats what we do. Guest ive given you a few tidbits, but if i were to describe the book, its a really humanization effort, because for me and black woman from a workingclass background to have the opportunity to tell her story is interestingly rare. I think thats why some people ask the question, how did you become here . How did you go from here to there . Its sort of like people think im a unicorn. Its like, like i dont exist, like people like me dont exist. I know that there are so many people in this country come in this world who feel like they dont exist because their stories are not told, or they think their stories are not worthy of being told. In this country with gotten to the point where we think theres only a handful of legitimate stories that make you a true american. [applause] if you dont fall into that narrow sort of line, its like you dont belong. But we all belong, and to think my book is just, it is the ordinariness of a very extraordinary story. And i hope that by telling it that it makes others, not just black women, not just black people, but other people, other women people who feel faceless and invisible and voiceless to feel the pride in their store in the way that i feel about mine. The ordinariness of going up working class kid with two parents who had values, they didnt have a lot of money. We grew up with music and art and love, and that was just about it. We were encouraged to get an education. I am not a unicorn. There are millions of kids like me out there, and its just a shame that sometimes people will cb and he will only see my color and then they will make certain judgments about that. Thats dangerous for us to dehumanize each other in that way. We are all just people. [applause] you know . With stories to tell. And we are flawed and broken and thus no miracle in our stories. Its just we are living life trying to do good, and thats who this little girl in becoming is. She is becoming a lot of things in life, but the Journey Continues and and i hope that t starts the conversation about voice and encourages some of the people. Because we need to know everyones stories sweet dont forget the humanity in each other. Because what we have learned, barack and over the course of this is your and traveling around the country is that americans are good people, decent people, really. Even if we dont agree on politics, and we have to remember that about ourselves and understand that is true not just in america but around the world. There are no devils out there. There are no people out there. There are people who do bad things, but all of us are really just trying to figure out and if we done something really horrible its usually because we were broken in some way. And if we understand each others stories and we share the stories that need we can be more empathetic, a more inclusive, maybe we can be more forgiving and be more open. So i hope that the book encourages some conversation around those kind of things. And then you will hear about the china and my shoes. [laughing] a couple of nice stories, you know . The dogs make an appearance, so not to worry. They are there. They are still alive doing well by the way. [applause] host thank you. I just have to tell you, we are glad that you are Michelle Obam Michelle Obama. [cheers and applause] guest thank you, carla. Host and they are, too. Tragic that you all. Thank you for everything you all do. Keep doing the work out in the community. We need you. [applause] [cheers and applause] that includes another look into booktv archives. Reminder that you can watch all of the programs you saw on first ladies tonight by going to our website booktv. Org. And a reminder that cspan published a book and a series on the first ladies which you can also access online. Weeknights this point were featuring booktv programs as aa preview of whats available every weekend on cspan2. Enjoy booktv on cspan2. Booktv on cspan2 this Labor Day Weekend watch top nonfiction books and authors. Watch booktv this Labor Day Weekend on cspan2 and be sure to watch the

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