Michelle Obama took on Donald Trump in a blistering speech in Michigan on Saturday, accusing the former president of “gross incompetence” and an “amoral character” while urging hesitant Americans to vote for Kamala Harris as US president.

“She has shown in every way that she is ready,” the former first lady told an enthusiastic audience in Kalamazoo. “The real question is, are we as a country ready for this moment?”

With the race virtually deadlocked, Obama, a reluctant political activist, said she was in the Midwest battleground and was following her own advice to “do something” to help Harris in his bid to become the country's first female president. to support.

In raw and strikingly personal terms, she asked why Harris was being held to a “higher standard” than her opponent. Trump's handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and his failed attempt to stay in power after losing the 2020 election alone should be disqualifying, Obama argued. But now the people who had worked most closely with him during his time as president – his former advisers and Cabinet secretaries – had come forward to warn that he should not be allowed to return to power.

“I hope you'll forgive me if I'm a little frustrated that some of us ignore Donald Trump's gross incompetence and ask Kamala to blind us at every turn,” Obama said. “Preaching!” a woman shouted.

The event in Kalamazoo, which Obama called the “Kamala Zoo,” was her first campaign appearance of this election after she gave a rousing speech at the Democratic National Convention in August. Addressing a largely female audience, Obama said voters should choose Harris not because she is a woman, but “because Kamala Harris is an adult – and God knows we need an adult in the White House.”

When Obama finished, Beyoncé's “Freedom” blared over the speakers and Harris took the stage. The women — the first black first lady and the first black vice president — hugged each other and the crowd erupted.

With ten days to go, Harris made her closing statement: She promised to be a president who would listen to the American people, unlike her opponent, who accused her of “looking in the mirror all the time.”

“Imagine the Oval Office in three months,” she said. “It’s either Donald Trump rummaging through his enemies list or me working for you checking off my to-do list.”

Before the event, Harris visited a local doctor's office in nearby Portage, where she spoke with health care providers and medical students about the impact of abortion restrictions. Harris has made protecting “reproductive freedom” and remnants of abortion access a major theme of her campaign, drawing a sharp contrast with Trump, who claimed but insisted on his role in overturning Roe v. Wade that he would allow a nationwide abortion ban as president.

In Kalamazoo, both Harris and Obama argued that Trump had no credibility on the issue. But Obama went further, describing the full spectrum of women's reproductive health – from period cramps to hot flashes – and calling for them to be seen as “more than just birthing vessels.” She lamented the lack of research on women's health and racial disparities in treatment. Obama directed her comments to the “men who love us” and urged them to consider the harm that occurs when a government “continues to deprive its women of basic services.”

Earlier this month, Barack Obama delivered a stern message to black men at his first campaign rally for Harris, urging them to drop the “excuses” and support her. Michelle Obama tried a different approach – urging American men to listen to women in this election.

“I ask all of you from the bottom of my heart to take our lives seriously,” Obama said, his voice swelling with emotion. “If we don’t get this election right, your wife, your daughter, your mother, we women will become collateral damage to your anger.”

She argued that abortion bans also affect men. If something happens during pregnancy or delivery and the doctor is prevented from treating, “you will be the one who prays that it is not too late.” You will be the one who asks someone, anyone, to do something, and then there is the tragic but very real possibility that, in the worst case scenario, you will be the one holding flowers at the funeral,” she said.

Obama's appeal reflected the gaping gender gap between candidates, with women leading Harris and men turning to Trump. She acknowledged the challenges facing the country and acknowledged that progress may be too slow, but argued that sitting out or third-party voting is not the solution.

“We stand to lose too much if we make a mistake here,” she said.

While Barack Obama is known as his party's great orator, Michelle Obama remains one of its most popular and effective speakers. Having once encouraged Democrats to “go up” when they were “going down,” Obama made no effort Saturday to hide her disdain for the man who led a years-long campaign to name her husband's birthplace questioned. Trump has also directed the racist birtherism conspiracy against Harris, the daughter of immigrants who was born in Oakland, California.

“In any other profession or field, Trump’s criminal past and amoral character would be embarrassing, shameful and disqualifying,” she said.

The Harris campaign fielded Obama – along with Barack Obama and other leaders and celebrities, including Beyoncé and Bruce Springsteen – in the hope that their star power could provide a decisive boost to a presidential campaign that was otherwise stagnant.

Both Harris and Trump were in Michigan on Saturday, chasing the state's 15 electoral votes. After Pennsylvania, where Harris will campaign on Sunday, Michigan is perhaps the next most critical state on the Democrats' path to the White House.

Trump won the state in 2016 when he tore down the trio of “blue walls.” But four years later, Michigan gave Biden his biggest swing state victory, and then Democrats won the state in the 2022 congressional midterm elections after the Supreme Court ruling overturned Roe v. Wade.

Polls show a dead heat. Trump has sought to exacerbate Democratic divisions over the Biden administration's handling of Israel's war in Gaza and Lebanon by inflaming the issue in Michigan, where scores of Muslim and Arab American voters have said they cannot support Harris . On Saturday, Trump was joined on stage in Novi, Michigan by Bill Bazzi, the current and first Muslim mayor of Dearborn Heights.

“I have never seen the devastation we are seeing now,” Bazzi said. “When President Trump was president, there were no wars.”

The Harris campaign has made several attempts to reach out to the Arab community, but tensions remain high, there is little time for a change of course and there is a risk of escalation following Israel's dawn attacks on Iran. At the event, Harris was interrupted by a pro-Palestinian protester. “We must end this war,” she replied, as the crowd drowned out the demonstration with chants of “Kamala.”

Democrats are focused on driving down voter turnout in Detroit — which Trump insulted (again) at his event in Novi on Saturday — while aggressively courting women, independents and anti-Trump Republicans in the suburbs. Her campaign recently received the support of Fred Upton, the state's longtime Republican representative who is leaving office in 2022. Upton told the Detroit Free Press that he has never supported a Democrat for president but cast an absentee ballot for Harris this year: “He just completely lost it. We don’t need this chaos.”

In his speech to Harris, Michigan Sen. Gary Peters compared the presidential campaign to the highest-stakes job interview. He expanded the metaphor and suggested checking Trump's credentials. The senator cited Trump's longest-serving chief of staff, John Kelly, who recently said that his former boss met the definition of a fascist.

“Would you hire this guy?” Peters asked. “NO!” The crowd thundered back.