It didn't take long for former first lady Michelle Obama to reminisce about the White House' East Wing.
Obama was speaking in front of a captive audience in Washington, DC, for a live podcast taping about her new book, “The Look,” when she compared the brightly colored outfits she wore as first lady to the work she did in the East Wing, which President Donald Trump tore down earlier this year to build a ballroom.
“It felt like the East Wing was where there was color and light and joy,” Obama told moderator and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Wesley Morris.
She explained that, for her and her husband, former President Barack Obama, the East Wing was about welcoming the American people – both in a literal sense, as it served as the visitor's entrance to the White House, and through the work they did there.
“We were thinking about those kids like us who were outside of the gates of the South Lawn looking in … not knowing what it is be in the White House … because a lot of those kids didn't feel invited in,” Michelle Obama said. “Our goal was to make that house as open as possible and the East Wing, that was the place where that got done.”
