【History Archives】

When they go low,History Archives Michelle Obama still goes high.

Though she's no longer America's first lady, Obama continues to use her voice to inspire people, and as she kicked off her Becomingbook tour this week she reminded everyone how important it is to take the high road.

In an interview with CBS This Morning's Gayle King, Obama explained why "going low" and behaving like Donald Trump has in the White House won't work in the end.

"Going low means you're operating from your place of emotion. It doesn't necessarily mean you're operating from a place of results," she explained. "More often than not, you don't get results when you go low. You just get your attitude out."

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Obama then went on to address Trump more closely, calling out how presidents especially have a responsibility to carefully consider each word and action.

"When you're in the White House and you have that platform and that responsibility where every word matters, you're often thinking — or at least Barack and I often thought — 'Is what we’re about to say going to help?' Is it going to move the needle forward? Or is it just going to make us feel vindicated in the moment?'"

"You learn that vindication in the moment is so short-term," she said.

"Going 'high' doesn’t mean you don’t feel and have feelings and that you don’t express feelings, that you don't acknowledge hurt or pain or anger," she went on. "That’s not what going high is. Going high means you have that feeling and how do you put that feeling in the world and how do you do that responsibly?'"

And though Obama has experienced her fair share of challenges throughout the course of her eight years in the White House and since leaving, she still holds her motto close to her heart and feels optimistic about the country's future.

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"I lived in the country. I traveled the country. I saw the heart of who we are. Forget race or party or ethnicity or gender," she said.

"[Whether] people agree with us or not, people were kind, people are worried, people have issues. But everybody's working for the same thing. The same goal. And I got to see that part of America."