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Former First Lady Michelle Obama mocked President Trump's destruction of the White House East Wing as she reflected on her time at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The 61-year-old spoke with Jenna Bush Hager, another one-time occupant of the White House, on Tuesday's TODAY Show as she promoted her new book, 'Look.' At one point during the conversation, Obama spoke about the challenges she faced when she served as the nation's First Lady from 2008 through 2016 - even pointing out that the onetime office in the East Wing has been demolished. 'There's pressure for every First Lady,' she noted, though she argued the spotlight 'was a little bit brighter' on her and her husband, former President Barack Obama, 'because politics created an otherness.' 'There were some people who tried to paint everything we did as a sign that we weren't ready, that we weren't suited, that we weren't American enough,' Obama claimed. 'And I don't think that other families dealt with that kind of criticism. 'But as you know, the First Lady - it's a strange job,' she continued, prompting Bush Hager to interject: 'Well, there's no guidebook.' 'There's no guidebook,' Obama agreed. 'There's barely a staff. Now we don't have a building.' Bush Hager laughed at the jab, adding: 'I know. RIP the East Wing.' The East Wing has housed the First Lady's Office since 1977, and has been the site of several historic efforts - including Laura Bush's meeting with UN Special Advisor on Burma, which is now Myanmar, on December 17, 2007, just months after the country's Saffron Revolution. Bush also launched her literacy efforts from the building, and Obama oversaw her Let's Move campaign to end childhood obesity from the East Wing. But Trump tore down the structure last month to build his $350 million 900,000 square foot ballroom, saying he 'never thought of [it] as being much.' He said the second-story, which was added on by Rosalynn Carter to accommodate the offices of the first lady, 'was not particularly nice.' 'We determined that, after really a tremendous amount of study with some of the best architects in the world, we determined that really knocking it down - trying to use a little section,' he said, was the best course of action. 'In order to do it properly, we had to take down the existing structure,' he explained. The president has been widely condemned for the demolition by Republicans and Democrats alike, as it comes amid a government shutdown that has left hundreds of thousands of federal employees without pay. Saturday Night Live even spoofed the construction in a sketch this week, and onetime Trump opponent Hillary Clinton even released merchandise reading: 'Not his house. Our house.' Meanwhile, her daughter Chelsea Clinton penned an op-ed to USA Today expressing her frustration with the demolition. 'What we dismantled today isn't just marble or plaster; it is a reflection of how easily history can be erased when power forgets purpose,' she wrote on October 23. But the Trump administration has fought back against the naysayers, with White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt saying the design changes and cost overruns - from $200 million to roughly $300 million - were due to 'necessary structural modernization.' She noted that the planned gilded ballroom is being bankrolled by dozens of major companies, organizations and wealthy individuals including crypto billionaires, major Trump donors and tech companies like Microsoft. White House officials have also pointed out that previous presidents made major changes to the building during their administrations, including Teddy Roosevelt's addition of the West Wing, Obama's new basketball court and Bill Clinton's restoration of the Executive Mansion.
