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♪♪ >> good evening, welcome and thank you for joining us this evening for what i'm b sure will be a stimulating discussion. p'm the president of hofstra university. this evening's program will address the leadership and legacy of first lady michelle obama. tonight, we will hear about the role that the first lady played in supporting president obama's election campaign. advising him during his time in the white house and how she continues to influence american politics today. i want to thank the women in leadership advisory board of hofstra university for co-sponsoring this event, and many of them are with us today. my role this evening is to moderate a panel discussion about with mr. tina tchen, who

served as chief of staff to the first lady. from 2011 to 2017. and in conversation with several members of the house, two faculty. so i'll begin with brief introductions. tina tchen currently serves as the executive vice president and chief strategy and impact officer for the obama foundation. she served for eight years in the obama white house, first as the inaugural director of the white house office of public engagement and then as chief of staff to mrs. obama. chen also served as the executive director of the white house council on women and girls for eight years after the white house, she worked in the chicago office of the buckley law firm and later served as the president and ceo of time's up now! and the time's up, founder. the panel this evening also includes three hofstra professors who have scholarly expertise in women's studies, public communication policy making, education and mental

health counseling all priority of michelle obama when she served as first lady. so far, this to your left. dr. lisa merrill is professor of writing, studies and rhetoric in the hofstra college of liberal arts and sciences. her research and publications are in the fields of performance studies critical race and cultural studies and women's and lgbtq history. professor merrill's publications have been awarded the jo callaway callaway book prize, the oscar bracket essay prize and the eclipse center. visiting professors in north american studies at the british library. sitting next to professor merrill is dr. tomeka robinson. she's a professor of rhetoric, rhetoric and public advocacy and the senior associate dean in the rabinowitz honors college. her scholarship focuses primarily in the areas of health, culture and argumentation and debate. she is frequently invited to give lectures throughout the u.s. and brazil and regularly

gives commentary to regional and national news organizations about issues of politics, health and race. dr. hollis serra, closest to me, holds a joint appointment as a professor in the department of counseling and mental health professions and educational leadership. she's an active member of numerous professional and community organizations, has presented at regional, national and international conferences and has authored or coauthored articles on topics ranging from the impact of hope, grit and resilience. behavioral health, college persistence and online pedagogy. so we will engage in this conversation with tina tchen for about 40 minutes, after which we will welcome questions from the audience, and we will conclude around 815.

so. so mr. chen. here we are. i will lead off and i will just simply ask you, what were your responsibilities as the chief of staff to first lady michelle obama? oh, well, thank you, susan. thank you for inviting me and for having me here. i'm going to actually answer a different question first, because to answer the chief of staff responsibilities, you have to ask your question what are the responsibilities of a first lady? because one of the things we used to talk about is there's no statute. right. there's no statutory responsibilities as there's no regulation that sets up an office of the first lady. as we used to say, there's no salary that comes with the office of being first lady of the united states. and so entering into this, you know, you sort of come with a blank slate, you know, and hat and how to do that so that that's one piece that is the context for working in the east wing of the white house.

and then similarly as chief of staff, that sort of follows i mean, obviously, you are the manager of the staff and we had our staff size. we kept actually very carefully at exactly the same number of staff that laura bush had, because we knew it was inevitable and it did happen where the critics would say she's got such a huge staff and it was like exact same as our predecessor. and so that included the social social office, which runs all of the events on the white house from the easter egg roll that just happened to large state dinners, to the press conferences. the president would hold it in the residence. we obviously had scheduling in advance for the for the first lady and but then, you know, we had various initiatives which will i know we'll get into and talk about and those morphed over time. and so then we had staff who worked with us on that. so there's that management piece. but then there is the strategy sizing and helping her figure out message communications, i forgot to mention, was in a

hugely important department because how do we communicate and how do we project ourselves out into the world? and that morphed over time because we were also really the first social media presidency to ever happen. and she was a big part of the leading edge, i think, of how the obama administration portrayed itself in social media. okay. so our next question will come from tamika. yeah. so as the first african-american first lady, you knew this question was coming. she is constantly framed as being a role model for girls of color, and particularly for black and brown girls. how did she feel about this framing and how it was portrayed in the media? so, you know, it's one of those things where and she has talked about this and written about i mean, when when you're a person of color and i've experienced this to you, live it your whole life, right? i mean, she was this first, you know, or the only or the one of

only a few, you know, when she went to princeton, you know, when she was at harvard law school, when she was in sidley austin, at the law firm. so, you know, she you're very you grow up almost conscious of that. so it became sort of a part of, i think, who she was knowing that. but her commitment to young people also sort of matured. you know, it started even before the white house when she did her work at public allies, which was a not for profit in chicago, that she spent some time working as as the ceo, which inspires young people to do social service and that connection she always used to say that, you know, if she was tired or if, you know, a little cranky, that put her in a room with young people and that would be the solution. so we had lots of roundtables and lots of go to jumping jacks on these on the south lawn with young people. but she did understand that the role that she had would be very

important. and so she used to say, you know, it was very interesting that we would we did this on the south side of chicago and roundtables with kids in anacostia in d.c. and overseas with kids, you know, young girls from just disinvested neighborhoods and she would explain that i'm like you, you know, i remember her saying this to kids. we weren't a roundtable and the south side of chicago, you know, at a school that had experienced a tremendous amount of gun violence that was less than a mile away from where she grew up. and she had to explain to these kids a couple of times because they didn't believe or to say, i grew up a half a mile from here. i did. i walked these streets, the very streets that you walk on in this neighborhood and now here i am. and you can do that, too. but that was very much her message was this. and making really clear, explaining what the southside of chicago was to an overseas audience. remember, she did that at the mulberry school when we were in

london with a school of immigrant bangladeshi girls. you know, to say, i understand that what you're doing is this let me paint you the picture of what growing up on the south side of chicago. look like. so using her platform to do that was really important to her remains important to this day. and this is the thank you for being here. this is an exciting time, i think, for all of us. so we appreciate you being here. i'm a performance historian, so it's going to be a question based on some of that. frederick douglass famously said if there's no struggle, there's no progress. those who favor freedom. and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing the ground. so my question for you, tina, is during the obama term in the white house, which particular struggles did you see? the first lady and your office

regard as necessary to take on? well, i'm sort of laughing. and, you know, some of my colleagues from the obama administration are here. phil schiller and nancy-ann deparle, because actually struggles is how many in terms of what we face are over. we walked into the great recession and then we walked into you know, you know, trying to get the affordable care act passed. we walked into the repeal of don't don't is dead tell you so yeah there were there were a lot of. and your question about you know what did the first lady and our team view as necessary struggles actually is shaped by something that was a guiding principle for our work that mrs. obama articulated. and from the very beginning, she said there's only one person elected in this building and everything we do on our side of the house needs to be in service of his agenda. and if it's not, then we got to ask ourselves a question about why are we doing it? and so, you know what we did and the initiatives we did, how she

spent her time, where she went out was very much shaped by what what would serve the president's agenda was very much shaped by not doing something that would detract from his agenda or what was going on in that particular moment. so, you know, that that framing, you know, what were the necessary struggles, you know, obviously because it filling nancy your hair you know that fight for the affordable care act which the two of them were so instrumental in, was clearly something, you know, that was necessary to really illuminate. and remember, this is actually was not her chief of staff at the time that we were doing this, i was running the office of public engagement. but i helped her put together a moment in the jackie kennedy garden with breast cancer survivors to really highlight, to make sure that, you know, she could be a unique messenger to women in what the importance was of the affordable care act to women's health and what that would do. so there were very, very moments where we knew we could be a unique messenger, you know, to speak to kids or to families or,

you know, to shape that. and so i think that's that's probably how we approached that. what were the necessary struggles? thank you. great. thank you. my question has to do with education. and we know that mrs. obama was such a strong advocate for post-secondary education as evidenced by her reach hire initiative, promoting opportunities for higher education, and with a goal to have the united states have one of the highest proportions of college graduates in the world. could you please share with the roles that you think colleges and universities today can play to make that goal a reality? well, while we are look, mrs. obama and the president both felt strongly that education really obviously led to their success, you know, shaped you know, their lives, you know, mr. obama's, you know, first generation, you know, she and her brother, you know, first generation in their family to graduate from college. so she really understood how

critical that path was. she understood how difficult the path is for lots of kids. you know, as you may recall, because we've told the story a lot, you know, she was she went to a college, a high school magnet school in chicago. and yet when she expressed her desire to go to princeton, you know, the college, you know, counselor at whitney young, which was already a magnet, schools sort of said, i don't think so. you know, i don't think your princeton material which to the young michelle robinson was just seen as a challenge, rather, because that's who she is. and so she had lived it. right. and so expressed it that a lot how reach higher came about was when we during 2012 during the reelection campaign most of my staff could not work on reelection work because their official white house staff and so when i had our policy staff do was to think about if we were so fortunate to get a second term, we already had our let's

move initiative on childhood obesity. we had joining forces veterans, military families. we knew there was room to do a third initiative. what could that be? and this is an interesting thing to get back to the opening question, susan, which is when you are the first lady and everything's in front of you and you could do anything with this platform making those choices you find is actually exceedingly difficult to figure out where are the places where you could make a unique contribution? you're not doing something somebody else did that is sufficient, totally worthy of the platform of the first lady of the united states. and yet will have a deep enough effect that isn't just something surface that that was all the elements we tried to put together. and so we hit on the college education goal because the president had already articulate it, that as a goal, the secretary duncan and and keeping with the we're doing something in service of the president's agenda that became the hit that the president and arne duncan had already articulated this

north star, they called it to really increase. we had fallen from the top of the world in college graduates to like 16 or 17 by the time. and how do we return that and a big pitch as mrs. obama could uniquely make with given her story was two first generation and and disadvantage kids on the message of what why you should go to college or to your community college or technical school something post-secondary the importance of a post-secondary education and you know, i think she and the president really believe that is sort of the pathway to upward mobility. it is the pathway to economic economic opportunity for kids and we did a lot of talking about. so what can colleges and universities do more of? one of the things we talked about a lot was is obviously access so increased financial aid increasing deep, reaching down into high schools. we visited several programs in colleges that were doing innovative things, you know, to bring kids on to college campuses. we actually did something where we did, you know, partnered with

google, who did these virtual tours, you know, on, you know, on google view, whatever they call it, you know, where they you could you could do 360 views of colleges and universities. and then we went to howard to do a like a tour and, you know, took, you know, like an instagram thing around howard and we're like high school, you know, guidance counselors wouldn't have putting inner city kids together to make trips to places like howard and elsewhere. so schools can do more of that. right, pulling kids who might not otherwise think about your school to do that and get some exposure to it. and then when they're here and mrs. obama talked about this a lot when you're in school, if you came from a you know, were you the first generation person to go to school? if your family is struggling, the pressure on a kid who got a scholarship to go to school, to spend that money, not on books, but on helping their family get fed, is tremendous. and i think we don't approve. those of us who don't didn't have a good fortune not to experience that folks in as she yours administrators of of schools need to pay attention

and help support those kids who are coming from different circumstance is to be able to stay in school and to be able to fully experience. you know, it's not just enough to give them a scholarship. you have to help them manage that. and manage the scholarship and manage it together with the rest of their pressures, and then to make those kids feel like they belong. yes. she talked a lot about imposter syndrome, you know, because, again, she felt it. she was representative of how, you can work your way through that. it's some of what she talks about now. and like we carry and you know what she's doing now in her current book, you know, it's very much that message to. so i think those are some of the things that i think, you know, institutions of higher learning can do to really promote that access for for kids. and i think we all know that those have really penetrated because this is this is what we do and this is what all universities are doing right now, particularly on the belonging. so fantastic. so it's it's pervasive, i would say, lisa, i think you were going to ask the next question. yes. i think in tina in your in your

full response, you anticipate it one of my questions. so i'm going to reframe since you mentioned the new book, i'm going to ask you a question that comes from becoming okay. so in michelle obama's becoming she talks about when she was taking on the huge issue of children's health. she said now that i had the benefit of operating from a huge platform, the vagueness of my new job description could be marshaled in service of real goals. and so when you mentioned that there wasn't a prescription and i just wonder if you could talk and then she goes on to say, here, find was a way of showing my real self. so could you talk a little bit about that, how she perceived that? because given the wide range of things that were possible and the lack of a prescribed approach, i just wonder if you

could tell us a bit about. yeah, so here's the thing about mrs. mrs. obama, which served us well is she is she's a goal setter, but she was very precise. she held us to task. so back to what was my job, which was to sort of get, get, get from her. you know, she you know, it wasn't just well, we'll do something with child or see into a garden. it was like, all right, what's that going to lead to? where are the outcomes? you know, what are the specific steps of different pillars? i mean, she she she was and i learned this from her. i mean, i do it a lot now. and my chief strategy role is a foundation and actually, it is the kinds of questions that i learned from her as she asked it of us as we were planning these programs, was to be very precise. we have a, you know, specific set of pillars, you know, so you know what to pillar to, you know, really increase fruit and vegetables, accessibility to kids. so, you know, we went to walmart, right? we went to cvs. you know, we went to, you know, the we got, you know, sugary drinks reduced, you know, then there was a whole piece about

labeling and and working with policy. so, you know, it was really trying to translate this very broad goal around combating childhood obesity into, you know, some very tangible outcomes that would happen. and what was fun over time. and we sort of this part, we sort of stumbled into was there was a whole policy agenda, which we worked with the domestic policy council. so what people forget is a lot of the initiatives came out of a study that was done by the domestic policy council and melody barnes on the various policy things that could attack. and we and the department of treasury even and others sort of were following that. but then we hit on this other way to use her voice, which was how do you inspire kids to do it? and we actually determined this was she is the one to raise. this is that actually by the time they're teenagers, it's too hard to get kids to change what they're eating. you know, if you're a teenager, you are going for this next, as witnessed by the trouble we got into by changing the snack rule. and all the teenagers went crazy.

so her pitch was, you start early, you know, teach them. young so that's why she wanted sesame street really early, right, to sort of talk about fruits and vegetables. you know, we did all of these, you know, fun things with kids, you know, to do that, to make fruits and vegetables. we did a kid steak dinner where we did a national competition and picked winners from one from all 50 states on what their recipes were. and they got to come to the white house with a full on east room treatment on a and a state dinner that we called the kids state dinner and featured their recipes in a cookbook. and so we realized that that kind of, you know, don't go on cnn to talk about it. go on, ellen. right. and, you know, talk, go, go and kids shows. we went on a whole bunch of disney shows. my daughter at the time was like a total she was a pre-teen. you know, that was her favorite thing because all of a sudden the disney stars would show up at the easter egg roll and that and speak to these issues that way. and it penetrated. right. do you think some of why people feel connected to her now is the

thing we stumbled on was you could feel connected to michelle obama by feeding your kids something different at lunch. that's all you had to do. you have to go to a place to a rally or sign up for an organization. all you had to do to feel part of that was just to chain, you know, put more vegetables on the table. and then that empowered you, connected you to her, and connect you to this broader movement in this change. and i think we really did see a culture change on health and wellness, paying attention to food and paying and i watched some ad the other night from the va. so do pe say that 96% of canned, you know, have zero sugar that i think came from us, right. sort of combat, you know, really trying to put that, you know, that message out there. and so, you know, that, i think is sort of i think at me as i hope i've answered your question, i've kind of got a wrap around the heart a bit, but that was sort of how, you know, we kind of thought about the

initiatives and then let's move became the model for, you know, joining forces and retire and then like girls learn that followed. thank you. thank you. so that's the perfect segue way into my next question. and and though i know it's no longer your role now that you're in the obama foundation, can you share with us what initiatives have continued or what new things mrs. obama might be up to? oh, so this is something i just learned from our predecessor is, you know, having both, you know, read, you know, the various biographies of our predecessors and also becoming the other the thing i had the advantage of doing as chief of staff was i became, you know, very good friends with my predecessor, chiefs of staff. so mrs. bush's chief of staff, anita mcbride, became a dear friend, milan verveer, who is, you know, hillary clinton's chief of staff when she was first lady. and they were real true advisors and and guideposts for me in this job that has no job description and and one of the

things i learned from them was to think about where do you want to put your initiative. so, for example, you know, secretary clinton put her america's first treasures and got it, you know, embedded into the department of interior and the reading initiatives that mrs. bush did, you know, got it embedded, you know, with, i think, the library of congress. and so i spent a good chunk of 2016 figuring out and talking to mrs. obama where would various things go? and so we were very deliberate. so let's move. actually, we have a501c3 that we had created actually as part of let's move the partnership for healthy america so that that went to them, although i don't think that they can call it let's move, because it was sort of out there, but it was an interesting thing about who owns what names, joining forces. we determined and supporting veterans and military families was really a job that came with the building. you know, that's a job. doing that work is part of what it means to be the commander in

chief and in military culture. if you were the commander of a unit, the spouse actually supports the families. and so that was very much what we were doing in that role. and so that when we had determined would stay there. plus, you know, president bush was already doing a great job with veterans through the bush institute, and we have supported them in the post white house time, i'm happy to say. dr. biden has continued it. so joining forces is still happening at the white house now led by sheila casey. i'm the wife of general george casey. so that's what happened to joining forces retire actually also went to a51c3 and now continue at i think at the. college x is one of the big you know higher ed and we still do college signing day every may you know where we celebrate kids and where where they're where they're going to college. the one that she said she wanted to personally stay, you know, very much leading and investing

in ones like girls learn, which was our fourth initiative started at the last two years of administration to support adolescent girls education around the world and the you know, getting, you know some of the started at 96 when we've started it is now sadly at 120 million girls around the world adolescent girls who are not able to complete their high school education. it was the back story to the founding of it is it was inspired by a visit that malala paid to the president, the first lady, in october of 2013. she was visiting the united states, asked to come for a visit. she and her father came in. it is the only meeting that malia obama asked to attend because a malia had heard about it from her mom. what are you doing? today was the last time i was meeting with malala. malia actually asked if she could come. turns out the timing was perfect for after school. somalia. you'll see there's a very iconic picture of the three of them together with malala. you know, in the in the oval office. and you know what?

i'm not in the picture because we're back bouncing valerie and susan rice, our national security adviser, and i sitting are sitting, you know, on the other side of the camera. but we, the three of us, walked out and said, okay, now we're going to do adolescent girls education. and what we did and this is another power of the first lady that i learned by that point, because it was 2013 is the ability to pull people in and so we were able to marshal between usaid, the state department, the peace corps, the millennium challenge corporation, billion dollars worth of investment, either in redirecting some existing funds, pulling some other funds together in us money to support adolescent girls education. we were able to travel to japan and get a commitment from the japanese government. and when when prime minister trudeau came down for their visit from canada, he made a commitment. and so we continue to do that. but then we started our own initiative ourself called let girls learn, which we learned from the we brought in activists whenever we started an initiative. we did a lot of research, not

just literature, research, but meeting with people in the field because we never wanted to do something that someone was already doing. you know, we wanted to respect people in the space. we wanted to fill whatever white space was there and not do something that was already being done. and so we brought in a lot of activists and were able to get some of the leaders, adolescent girls, activists around the room, including folks from africa who were in-country and what they said. and angelique kidjo in particular, whose voice always rings in my ear, the singer who has this great program in benin that don't come tell us what to do, we know what to do in our communities to support us, in our grassroots efforts. and then, secondly, help us connect to each other, because it's great that you bring this to the united states every now and then, but then we go home and we're by ourselves and we can't reach across borders. so like roseland was premised on creating a network which we did sort of virtually and then creating a way to provide them funds individually, which we did through the peace corps. when we came out of the the

white house, we had to re-engineer that and reimagine it. but it now exists at the obama foundation as the girls opportunity lines the same model. we have a network of 4000 now, almost 5000 in-country activists who are connected to each other. we supply them with curriculum through the network where from care and unicef and others to help them do their work better. and then we have a go fund me page where we feature these individual programs so people can read about them and crowdsource and the organizations learn how to crowdsource. but we have our own fund to top off that. so to make sure they all get funded no matter what and we will now actually expanded into the us later on this year and start to do some, some more of that work in chicago. but that is remained something. she's very excited about. we launched actually we had a launch in october of last year in new york, a partnership between girls opportunity alliance, the gates foundation

and the clooney foundation with mrs. obama, amal clooney and melinda, french gates on the stage together talking about child marriage, which is obviously one of the huge barriers to girls completing their education around the world. and so that's that's pretty exciting to have the three of them together. the three of them share this passion and they co-wrote an op ed in around international women's day last month. so, you know, we're excited about what we're going to keep doing in the future on this. thank you. it's all exciting. yeah, thank you, holly. great. thanks. well, i originally was going to ask you a little bit more about the let's move and the particularly the bigger did the white house kitchen garden. but i'm going to move on because i think you answered some of those. i will plug the obama, you know, presidential center, which will have a fruit and vegetable garden. no wonder. so because, of course. well, let me switch a little bit. i wanted to i mean, clearly, mrs. obama's support of military families was evident and her focus on wellness and

particularly mental health, by advocating for the campaign to change direction, promoting the awareness and education regarding mental health issues was a major step in the national discussion on mental health for military families and for all families. can you share more about the campaign and the short and long term outcomes? yeah. so again, this came about through, you know, one of the things about joining forces and our journey on that is mrs. obama and i both often say, you know, we're really weren't changed very much by our time in in in the white house, except for one thing. and that is our understanding and our appreciation for the military. so we both came from, you know, nonmilitary families from chicago, which is despite the fact that great lakes, you know, training center is just up the road, is not a military town. you you don't feel that. you don't see it. you're, you know, very separate from it. and that's how we came to the white house. and it was really eye opening during the campaign. so this is when mrs. obama first had roundtables with military

spouses during the campaign and heard about these multiple deployments. and remember, we were in the depths of these two decades of war at the time, and then the strain on kids who go to ten schools before they graduated high school and spouses who are, you know, juggling this all by themselves, whether their loved one is deployed. and so it was very eye opening to mrs. obama and it was to me as we went through joining forces and one of the critical things among so are the pillars of joining forces was was employment. you know, where we did a huge employment effort to get companies to realize this and to hire veterans. so all these veteran preferences that now existed started them education. you know, and especially for these kids who are transferring and also military spouses education programs. and the third pillar was health and it started sort of broad health. you know, it was a little bit of continuation of let's move. and we did an army, did an initiative on changing the the

dining hall. dining halls are like terrible on dates. have you ever been on a military base? my son is now marines. i'm now part of it. but it's, you know, it's it's taco bell and it's know it's like not to say anything bad about any of our food chains, but it's a lot of chain jade food. and the message is much better. but the army did an initiative that we went and visited and highlighted to change makes things healthier. but as we kept interrogating this, it became clear that the really critical issue was mental health. this is when rate of suicides were going up. the acknowledgment of ptsd and traumatic brain injury were going up. and so that became very important. so one of the things i'm most proud of that we did did an initiative to get medical schools and nursing schools to incorporate in their curriculum, training on, you know, military, you know, ptsd and traumatic brain injury and especially with to military service and that and those traumas and that was a huge we did an event in

university of pennsylvania to unveil that and i really proud because that we had a retired general who was leading one of the tbi initiatives who we had a meeting and he said to me, you know, we were i was pretty skeptical. i thought this was just going to be another, you know, feel good awareness raising campaign. all good. but that's all i thought it was going to be. and he said, you've completely changed mind with that initiative. that was huge to change that curriculum. and then we wanted to do something broader. so, you know, you know, change direction became it was a great campaign that again, we lifted up a campaign that someone else had designed, which is, you know, the five signs used to sort of hold up because, you know, look, we learn the five signs of cancer. you learn, you know, you know how to recognize a heart attack. we're you know, we learn things like cpr are we don't treat mental health like we treat physical health. and mrs. obama used to say, like, you would never tell somebody with a broken leg to just, you know, shake it off, go back to work. of course, you can get up and

walk around. just walk around. you know. yes, your bone is hanging out of your your your leg. but you can walk around. but that's what we do to people who have serious mental health. right. you know, we, you know, it's like shake it off. it's like it's nothing. and so and we don't learn the signs. i mean, the thing that was most tragic we learned is there are a lot of signs. somebody, a loved one, is deteriorating. you know, how how, how they're behaving, how they're interacting. if you can't make eye contact, if they're losing weight or if they're gaining weight, i mean, it is. and and so, you know, learning those five signs like we, you know, you know, in the past used to learn the five signs of cancer was that was that campaign had changed direction. and i will say i think it you know she has continued that discussion. so you see, you know, mrs. obama does morning i saw her on cbs good morning with gayle king you're talking about her own mental health struggles. right. and and and the struggles during covid and being open about that and being open, the struggles within even her, her relationship with the president, because that's part of it, too. and the need to talk about this more, i mean, that was what it

was, is that we need to take us out of the shadows. we need to treat it like physical health on parity with it. and and acknowledge it and empower individuals, citizens like with that, you know, change direction to, you know, understand and empower themselves to really take action on their own mental health. and i think it's changing. i mean, sadly, i think covid has led to a realization of how widespread the problem is. you know, there was something i saw the study that just came out that said 77% of americans at some point field feel depressed or have mental health issues, 77%. i mean, so clearly this is, you know, an issue and and so i'm very proud of the work that we did to sort of bring that to the fore. so i have a couple of questions that have occurred to me since we've been talking. and you've been talking about all of these initiatives that it sounds like the first lady and you and your team did sort of independently, although in service to the administration.

to what extent was michelle obama a real adviser to the president on the issues that he was facing, the real policy issues, foreign policy issues that he was facing? did she play that role at all? because, of course, first ladies have varied in that way. so look i'm i can't speak to what went on upstairs because i don't know what happened. i'm just asking, though. so but but i will say, as a general, no, i mean, she really and i think she's actually said this publicly. so i'm not speaking out of school that actually what she saw upstairs as the more the family space as family space that one of her roles when he came up the stairs was to give him that break. you know, they sat around the table and talked about what sasha and malia did. they you know, that that was one of the things she felt was important for her to do and to actually to not interfere. we both we both were cognizant. now, i one of the things that

helped in coordination and understanding of all this is when i became chief of staff in january 2011 was about the time bill daley became the president's second chief of staff. and bill and i, you know, made the decision that i would actually be, you know, an assistant to the president and one of the senior advisers to the president would carry that title. and therefore be in bill's very painful 730 in the morning every morning. right. phil and nancy and were there there ever 38 in the morning. chief of staff meeting which enabled me to actually sit there as both her chief of staff and robert had this dual as as running the council on two girls so that was that was another reason to sit there but allowed us to be very much in sync with what he was doing. if there was an issue on veterans. so i did a lot of work with when denis mcdonough was chief of staff, the two of us sort of spearhead it efforts to try to make changes in the in the department of veterans affairs. you know, when there were issues that would touch upon us, we were very involved in a lot of

the food policy work. and sam kass, you know, became a food policy advisor to the domestic policy council, together as a holding a dual headed running. let's move. so we had those moments where our team was integral, but it was always integrated with the domestic policy team or you know, the folks doing, you know, military family work because that's how we saw ourselves working, not in dependently from that and whenever we were going to do an initiative or be out there on the south lawn, jumping jacks with kids, you know, we were we always made sure to be very coordinated in our scheduling, in our communication strategy. you know, you're not going to go do jumping jacks on the south lawn with a bunch of kids while you've got some serious national security policy being, you know, press conference happening on the inside of the building. so we became, you know, and i think it was a lot of that coordination. we were very intentional about because again, keeping in keeping with the what we should do to be at it, we wanted be additive to what was going on. and if we're not and god forbid,

we should be actually counterproductive. that was really, you know, the main concern that we had. thank you. i have one more question and then we'll open it up to add to your questions in the audience. and i think that there are are there are microphones here on each side. last night, we heard a talk by melissa harris-perry. and one of the things that she said and i won't i won't say it nearly as eloquently or interesting as she did, but of the things that she said was that that that, you know, barack obama did not the sort of classic black american story. right. he was biracial. his father was from kenya. he, you know, grew up in hawaii. it wasn't the sort of classic story. of course, michelle had the classic story and that at some level, although he didn't, he didn't literally her story, he couldn't have gotten away with

that. he sort of presented himself, performed the story. i'm not exactly sure how to say it, how she said it, but he he was able to communicate in a way that he kind of appropriated her story and that that served him very well, you know, with the voters and his popularity and so on. and there was a lot of discussion about how he did that performance. and then, of course, he could also do a performance for white voters. and so on. so that that's been going that was interesting last night. it was very interesting. so i guess my question is, first of all, do you agree with that? and to an extent to which you agree with it, what how did that sort of work in how michelle about it and so on? is it anything you observed and have any comment on what i'm saying? interesting. well, the way i guess i think about it, experienced it.

you know, i've known them for a long time before. you know, we went we went to the white house. is it is true. he had a very different upbringing, didn't have a father. his mother was gone from for much of his life. he was raised raised by his grandparents in in hawaii, having left his mom who stayed, you know, back in indonesia. and so what i think he found when he married mary know mary michelle obama became part of mary robinson's family is and that community is. i mean, look, he started out as a community organizer in chicago state. in chicago, if he appropriated anything, he probably did chicago as his hometown as opposed to honolulu as on hometown. so i guess i would think of it that way. i mean, that's what he appropriated. and you will actually see that story. just to give you a little preview of the obama, you know, presidential center. that is how the story reads. is that his place. while there's a story of his personal history, the power of

place that we will show is the power of chicago and how that shaped him. and he he has talked about this and written about this, that it was that organizing experience on the streets of chicago and those neighborhoods, the election of harold washington as the first black mayor, which was transformative for so many of us, myself included, actually in our political activism and our connection. and i then think it was, you know, his becoming part of this extended family in a lot of robinson's in chicago that extended black family with, as you say, you know, the quintessence you know, you know, great migration, you know, a african-american family's. that's what he became a part of. that's how much appropriated and he became part of that family and that became also part of his work. it's the district that he represented when he went to the illinois senate. it is, you know, the the organizing. it is along the way somewhere that we can't remember.

that's where i met him doing that kind of progressive political organizing. and so i think that's where that genuinely came from. it wasn't adopted as performative of in in i don't know quite how melissa said it, but it, i wouldn't view it that way. you know, it is true he could speak to that audience, but that's because lived it, not because he had adopted as a performance. i guess it's what i'm trying to say because of that, both starting in political, you know, community organizing in chicago and then extending it through what he did in the robinson family and joining that robinson family and then extending it through to his work as a political leader in chicago, which, you know, gives one speaking parochialism. chicago, if you're right, if you grow up in chicago politics, that gives you a very different appreciation for race politics in and and rough and tumble, you know, community organizing politics and direct contact with voters politics because chicago

voters don't let are not shy. and we'll let you know about that. and that's what i think enabled that piece. not so much. and you're right, because he went to harvard law school, he went to columbia an accidental because he went to punahou, which is the star school in honolulu. steve case, you know, naming people who came out of punahou, he had that ability to also code switch right? that's what he was doing was code switching. right. which is, you know, to speak, you know, to you know, a non-black audience, you know, in in that way. but that also was kind of authentic to him. i mean, i don't think he was it same in the same way that what he was doing in in living, having lived an african-american experience, could speak to that authentically. he could speak authentically from his own background. right. to a punahou type audience. right from his high school days. it is probably one enabled him to become our first black president. right. was someone who had grown up

with one foot in not just two worlds, but multiple worlds, who had the the agility, you know, and the incredible mental capacity that this man has, you know, to understand these different environments, to intellectually understand them. he has huge emotional iq. i got to say, for a man, he is probably got more emotional iq than most men that i know of. that also, i think contributed to his ability to be that kind of person that could win the presidency. as a guy named barack hussein obama. right. in in in 2008. okay. thank you. are there questions? please feel free to line up. and i think we give student priority but we'll take questions from anybody.

so my name is melvin walker. i'm a graduate student. i'm also an army veteran. and i come from an army family. so i appreciate you speaking about military i appreciate you speaking about military families and mental health, i thought it was excellent. i member when the first lady came in the graduation banquet of 2011 at west point and she spoke particularly about hardships. you can really here for speaking not only as first lady but as a mother so as not addressing cadets but also parents. i'm wondering if you could share a story about how engaged in military families.

>> yes. irresponsibility again, he made regular visits to walter reed, we went to what the on several occasions. he made a special place of the white house, goldstar families we created a goldstar tree, if you have visited the white house and came in through the east wing gate, the first thing you would see the goldstar tree which goldstar families were invited. holiday celebrations to write the name of their loved ones on the tree. one year we did a blue room

tree, a merge featured tree entirely done for military families. we asked goldstar families to share the story of their luck on they lost. to bring awareness because so many americans have no idea. we would invite military moms and lost a loved one to the white house or other events. i especially but time with one family, young kid. ... us.

and so those interactions had sort of profound effects, you know, on and on. but the president and mrs. obama, you know, it's the thing and the president has written about this that way upon him the most in making lead upon him in the situation room and people go into combat unit was acutely aware of that. it was important and i will say president and dr. biden shared this, is to go to washington d.c. and to have them come in because it's really important to not shy away fromro it. to not, not see what the effects are. that's why the president is trying about going to walter reed and at that time the pacing

of combat, you know what, the pacing of combat at that point in time was pretty high and so we come a walter reed was full at the time and it was tough when we would all go. but it was something that we knew we had to face and look at and visit withos the families. it was their responsibility and the president and the first lady of the estates had the huge responsibility and a big part of who it was not just the ordering of the military troops but to care foror them and their famils when they come home or when they don't come home. >> thank you. >> thanks much forth coming. so you know throughout the presidency and beyond i think michelle obama certainly used her power for good however i was

so struck during the presidency and even during the elections of the push back and the backlash that occurred you know right from the beginning. planting vegetables was at terrible political act in some kind of way and childhood obesity. my question is them i guess i was taken aback by some of those responses to what extent, what kinds of push back were surprising to michelle obama and to you and what surprised you about it? >> that's a really good question. because there was a lot. i think she wrote about this that what you don't get w prepad

for in chicago was rough-and-tumble i don't think the glare that you get when you run the presidential stage running for national office in a very tough race. that's is what i think was unexpected so that first, we could go down the list. the angry black women means, the level of the vitriol i think was surprising at first and then we came to expect it and we knew that it was going to happen. being referred to in various animal terms by certain right-wing radio people so that we came to expect and she never watched cable news actually. "sports central" was on the tv

during workouts both for him and for her and/or hgtv is what we watched watch on the plane when we were traveling places. so that was one way to manage it but it with our job and my job was to read all the clips and if there were something that rose to the level of something that one after the girls with the clamp it down or something else. a lot of it we would do together with the world -- white house communications team forget to make that calculation where do you clamp something down or give it more oxygen and some more often than not we decided on the side of don't do it. i will tell you the thing thatth was probably the most, took us by surprise and then we came to expect it was criticizing her for walking off the plane in shorts. i don't know if remember that but i think was early on in 2009

they took a family vacation and they were on their way i think to one of the national parks and they were going to go hike but before that they would make an official stop in the plane in short said oh my you would have thought who knows what. she walked off the plane in shorts on the way to a family vacation so that surprised us that it would be so ridiculous and are the normal. we got smart and we were really careful after that with exactly how she get off the plane and what she would wear in it started out as growing into over the years a fabulous stylistic and you don't thinkk about this.

looking at the footing on the ground. we had to get good at that and so that was the surprising part but a lot of it was just managing it and not sinking to it and when they go low pico high, right-click set phrase came out with just the way we operated which was just had to realizeoi she's the first lady f united states and they are just some things you don't have the engage with and just let it roll off your back. >> hi. i'm a political science major here and i want to thank you for being here. this is exciting for me. my question is very similar to thela last one. i was going to ask as the specially the first woman of color that wee have never had as the first lady she was getting an exceptional amount of criticism for you know every

person in public standing gets an exceptional amount of criticism but for her was a bit worse than i was going to ask how she dealt with it mechanically and you did touch on that a little sum interested in how may she have dealt with it emotionally and how her family dealt with that sort of dealing with all of the racism that america has took her away you and how one handles that. >> so i think and she wrote s about this in becoming. it was hard and in addition to dealing with it like a lot of celebrities she was in the spotlight so there was a lot of attention in social media took hold over the coursef of eight years and there was a lot of that. what celebrities don't have is being in the white house where any action you take has the potential to reverberate back

onto the president and on the agenda. and we also. it wasn't just her. any of usor who work there felt that you just knew at any given moment any slipup, any carrier papers across and that the president because they will take a picture of what you are carrying more name to thing that could happen that all of a sudden contributes to bad news cycles for the president. that was the will thing worse thing that any of us would want toti do and especially mr. obama who was do things only in the service and don't do things that will harm what is going on and as i said she writes about it in becoming and she held that acutely and almost internalized the stress and that wasn't something we talked about a lot but she was incredibly strong

and it wasn't something that was visible except we were on the plane after that last air force one right flank to california she cried for an hour and a half. all of a sudden the release of eight years plus really including the two years on the campaign trail of that kind of stress every day any time you are in the public eye, it did way on her and it was really hard and i used to say to people who would comeme to work no job you have ever done in your life will prepare you for being in the whitee house because the level of execution that is required is everything down to how you let people in the gate. oneav of my first days was they didn't have a good system for how the clear people through the security gates and it took a long time to get that anyone

slipup like if one digit is off with the gate the queen was coming to visit. the queen of jordan was coming to visit through the most visible gate at the present would come through on pennsylvania avenue. she was stopped. we couldn't scan her and in the press are watching the queen stand on pennsylvania avenue trying to get him in. it's little things like that that's reported and you have all those things at the level of execution that you have two do onth a tightrope which was tremendous and the strain that was placed on everybody there to obviously do the best because the country isn, relying on your information about how to make of policy decision and how w to interact and also the level of scrutiny that is placed upon you

is not like anything anyone will ever have in any other job. i was the ceo of a 3 billion-dollar company and you will not get that. >> thank you. >> good evening. my name is allls seen a end i'ma resident of hempstead the posse to university niches want to thank you first of all for bringing insight into probably one of the most graceful first ladies to ever serve. i had to say there is no classic story and i'm grateful for that. my mom who is here an audience is the first african-american to be elected to the town council

in over 300 year history. her name is deputy supervisor dorothy oglesbee and senior councilwoman as well. she did come to new york as part of the great migration. she and my dad from the rural south and were able to raise us in the life of service that i'm so grateful for. i took that to wall street connect in the private equity investor for over 16 years. and i was on my way to raising my first son and i was stopped in my tracks when i went to carnegie hall and every 27th robert f. smith is my brother. and it was my mother's birthday as well and they had a fireside

chat called the power network, the power network and they talked about this deadline of june 30. i really didn't know what it meant. i knew it was on broadband and we weren't going to miss out on something else that could help us elevate our communities. we have it missed out on the g.i. bill on the homestead act so i didn't know what it was. we travel from mexico to celebrate my mother and i won't tell her age but to celebrate in mexico with one of my friends who is in technology and finance. what happens to be, i would love to hear some of your thoughts i'm sure first lady obama has thought about this as well. we are 101 hbcus, 70 of those

hbcus are in broadband coverage. 50% of the doctors, lawyers and other professionals of color come from those hbcus. i spoke to a friend of mine who went to alabama state and he said that they had to bring a bus to put the kids on so that they could do their homework because there's no broadband. so i say on that day my life wasn't erupted from raising my first official funds to being in a place where i am tasked to raise $30 million to eradicate that just the offices and staff that have two fell out the grant applications at the state level and into the federal level so i had stopped what i was doing because it is like being deployed. one of my partners, yeah it is.

she's a graduate of west point tracy lloyd and we are dedicating the funds that we are raising to emery perez she was the first black woman to be killed in iraq. that's the sister of hours so who better to dedicate this to then someone who has protected us as a nation. has anything, have you've been thinking about this issue because there's going to be a generation that could possibly be left far behind if this isn't addressed. [applause] >> first of all your mom is amazing and i'm honored by the fact that you were here.

so one hbcus i will say while we were in office we made it a point during the graduation cycles, we always gave to hbcus. that's why she gave the same speech in tuskegee which i think was thehr last one. so shiningd, a light on them was something we did hear a lot about. i would say in the current environment where no longer in the spot that i do know from other work i do a little bit about the brand now. two things i know the bite of frustration as the money directed to hbcus where we were unable to make a big investment and to hbcus is we were making sure they get accepted that and secondly i know it's part of the inflation reduction

act. there is a tremendous amount of moneyy and reducing broadband -- and i can't tell you how to access it because again i'm not in the administration but i do know comcast has invested a lot in this very committed to racial equity and investing their own money asl well as getting asked us to federal broadband money so if you are not connected into that i would suggest doing so. [inaudible] [inaudible] >> right, right. he's been great.

what robert is doing is amazing. i know it's been a priority for the current administration obviously which is something very important. >> thank you. i think we have time for maybe one more more question the ebony buddy has one. if anybody has one. i'm currently on the leadership board but i do question i think anytime we do work or we have a job and it's done we look back and we say what could we have done differently. is there anything and maybe there's a lot. is there anything that comes to mind at the top of the list that you would say michelle would go back and say i wish we could have done that differently? >> i'm trying to, i'm sure there

are and i am sure that we had talked about it but there's not an immediate we should have done that differently kindve of thing or conversation. i wish we had started the mental health bill earlier because several things that changed directions in one of those got started late in administration we justof sort of ran out and there would have been more to do and we ran out of time to do that. we did a lot of mentoring work in their a lot of mentoring programshe out there and we couldn't figure out how to expand that so we did what we could with the girls and we brought in that so that's one that we tried to figure out how

we could have done more to scale that. that might be one thing. it's also been six years [laughter] as we all know so i will admit to a little memory loss on some of those things but what we didn't talk about even though we had two terms and it was eightei years, it was really a short period of time that you have because the time is broken up. for sure the first-term is two-year chunks because of midterms and then you are running for re-election and it comes up really fast. even in t the second term becaue you've got a legislative calendar that you are trying to deal with and you're cognizant of what's going to happenwh in e end and how you think about the legacy you are leaving and

provide policies that won't immediately be returned especially legislation that could be overturned. so there were probably a lot of regrets on that front. i know we collectively regret having left immigration reform and not being able to get that as far and finally had to do it byby executive order. and that will be able to continue for those families. overall immigration reform remains something we all wish we could do. you run out of runway and we have the majority and then you don't have enough time after that to put things together. it's something that they are

handling quite well in the biden administration right now with their majority. and it's something we wish we would have had the majority for longer than we did to be able to do that. >> please join me in thanking tino tchen for a really wonderful presentation. [applause]