'Art of saying no': Michelle Obama reveals reason for missing Trump’s inauguration

In January, former First Lady Michelle Obama was absent from two major events: President Donald Trump's inauguration on January 20 and the late President Jimmy Carter's funeral on January 9.

Political reporters wondered why she wasn't at either event. But Obama offered some clarification on the April 22 episode of her vodcast.

Obama, according to the Daily Beast's Nandika Chatterjee, would have been sitting next to Trump at Carter's funeral. And she said, on the vodcast, that when she didn't attend those events, she was making the decision that was "right for me." And she addressed claims that she didn't attend because she and former President Barack Obama were having marital problems.

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Michelle Obama explained, "People couldn't believe that I was saying no for any other reason; they had to assume that my marriage was falling apart. It took everything in my power to not do the thing that was perceived as right, but do the thing that was right for me. That was a hard thing for me to do."

The former first lady said she had to "basically trick" herself into skipping Trump's inauguration.

“It started with not having anything to wear," Michelle Obama recalled. "I was like, 'If I'm not going to do this thing, I got to tell my team, I don't even want to have a dress ready, right?' Because it’s so easy to just say, 'Let me do the right thing.'"

The former lady also said that she's trying to practice "the art of saying no" — and encourages other women to do the same.

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Michelle Obama commented, "I want our daughters, I want the young women out there… I want my girls to start practicing different strategies for saying no. After all that I’ve done in this world, if I am still showing them that I have to keep — I still have to show people that I love my country, that I'm doing the right thing, that I am always setting, going high all the time, even in the face of a lot of hypocrisy and contradiction. All I'm doing is keeping that crazy bar that our mothers and grandmothers set for us.”

Watch the full video below or at this link:

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