Trump lashes out at First Lady Michelle Obama

US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has taken a rare swipe at Michelle Obama, reminding voters of a snide comment she had made about Hillary Clinton eight years ago.

Addressing a rally in North Carolina, Trump quoted a comment the First Lady had made during the 2008 Democratic presidential primary contest between Hillary Clinton and now US president Barack Obama.

“I see how much [Michelle Obama] likes Hillary, but wasn’t she the one that originally started the statement, ‘If you can’t take care of your home, you can’t take care of the White House or the country’” he said. 

Trump said that he had considered using that line in his own speeches, but decided against it.

“I said, ‘We can’t say that. It’s too vicious.’ They said, ‘Well, Michelle Obama said it.’”.

Michelle Obama’s comment was at the time widely seen as a reference to Hillary Clinton’s relationship with her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

However, the Obama campaign insisted that the line was not aimed at the Clintons but rather referred to their own personal struggle with parenting during a campaign.

“So, we’ve adjusted our schedules to make sure that our girls are first, so while he’s travelling around, I do day trips,” Michelle Obama continued in her 2007 speech. “That means I get up in the morning, I get the girls ready, I get them off, I go and do trips, I’m home before bedtime.”

Michelle Obama has repeatedly criticised Donald Trump during this presidential campaign. In an emotional speech, she said that the leaked footage in which Trump brags about women letting him kiss and grope them because he is famous had shaken her “to my core”.

“This was a powerful individual speaking freely and openly about sexually predatory behaviour,” he said.