MOBILE, Alabama — Donald Trump at the final stop of his "Thank You" tour on Saturday again gave a play-by-play of his election night victory, but also said First Lady Michelle Obama must have been talking about the past when she said the nation now feels without hope.
"She made that statement not meaning it the way it came out," Trump said.
In an interview that aired on CBS Friday, Mrs. Obama told Oprah Winfrey "now we're feeling what not having hope feels like." She did not mention Trump's name explicitly.
"I assume she was talking about the past not the future cause I'm telling you, we have tremendous hope and we have tremendous promise and tremendous potential," Trump said Saturday. The crowd booed at the mention of Mrs. Obama.
Trump’s comments were a contrast for the president elect, who was known on the campaign trail for swift and biting rebukes of those who spoke ill of him, even in veiled language.
"I met with President Obama and Michelle Obama in the White House. My wife was there. She could not have been nicer," Trump said. "I honestly believe she meant that statement in a different way than it came out."
Trump's multi-stop, multi-week victory tour came to an end in a familiar stadium Saturday, a place that once housed his biggest rally of the campaign.
Trump's first 25,000+ person rally in Mobile took place in August of last year and exemplified the early appeal of the then-GOP presidential hopeful.
And while his quick defense of a former rival marked a departure from old, the rest of the rally was quintessentially Trump — including promises of "the wall," barbs for the press, and congratulations for those who knew he could do it from the start.
