Michelle Obama Says We’re In The ‘Janky Version’ Of America

Former first lady Michelle Obama shone a light on the current state of the US on Wednesday, quipping that the country is in its “janky” era, but that Americans can grow from it.

“You know, there are versions of the country that happen, right? And the new version doesn’t make the old one bad,” Obama told comedian Hasan Minhaj on the show she co-hosts with her brother, IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson.

“It’s necessary for growth, and I think we’re in just a janky version, right?” she said.

Minhaj agreed and then asked, “May I curse, Mrs. Obama?”

“You may,” she replied.

“Yeah, shit is jank right now,” he said. “Super jank.”

Obama put an optimistic spin on things, adding that “with each version, we learn something about ourselves as a country.”

“Right now, I’m kind of digging the way folks are beginning to respond, right?” she continued. “I mean, Minnesota, powerful stuff. I mean, it was a powerful reminder of what a community of people can do and are willing to do to protect one another. You know, when you’re not so janky, you don’t have to prove that, right?”

The Trump administration notoriously deployed federal agents to Minnesota at the end of last year as part of its aggressive deportation campaign. The massive public outcry over the operation intensified after federal agents killed US citizens Alex Pretti and Renee Good in January.

Former President Barack Obama warned that month that Pretti’s killing should serve as a “wake-up call to every American, regardless of party, that many of our core values as a nation are increasingly under assault.”

Michelle Obama noted that as a country, “We haven’t been this janky for a while, and I think our muscle of understanding our truth just got a little lax.”

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