With the bravado that so many of his supporters love, former President Donald Trump took a moment following the federal indictment for his alleged mishandling of classified documents to trash a Netflix documentary about Michelle Obama from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s wife.
Documentary filmmaker Katy Chevigny is married to the man now dedicating himself to destroying Trump. Based on the former first lady’s memoir, Chevigny produced “Becoming,” one of a series of collaborations between Netflix and the Obamas.
In a rousing speech just hours after Trump was arraigned in a Miami federal court, the GOP’s leading challenger to President Biden’s bid for a second White House term dumped on “Deranged Jack Smith” and his wife’s work.
“The prosecutor in the case — I will call it our case — is a thug,” Trump told the crowd gathered at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. “I named him ‘Deranged Jack Smith.'”
(Video: YouTube)
“I wonder what his name used to be?” he continued. “‘Jack Smith.’ It sounds so innocent, doesn’t it? ‘What’s his name? Jack Smith. He’s a very nice man.'”
“He’s a behind-the-scenes guy, but his record is absolutely atrocious,” a defiant Trump stated. “He does political hit jobs.”
Trump noted Smith “destroyed” the life of former Governor Bob McDonald of Virginia. Smith “absolutely ruined his life and the life of his family,” Trump said, for a case that was ultimately overturned by the Supreme Court.
“He destroyed that man, and he destroyed that family,” Trump said, adding that what Smith is doing to his own family “is a disgrace.”
On a roll, Trump went on to call Smith a “raging lunatic” and an “uncontrolled Trump hater.”
“He’s a raging and uncontrolled Trump hater, as is his wife, who happened to be the producer of that Michelle Obama puff piece,” the embattled former President said. “This is the guy I’ve got.”
“Becoming” follows Michelle Obama on her book tour, chronicling her interactions with various Americans along the way. Naturally, a slew of Hollywood liberals make appearances in the film.
(Video: YouTube)
The film was released in 2020 when former Obama national security advisor Susan Rice had a seat on Netflix’s board of directors, Breitbart notes. At the time, despite Hollywood’s Obama adulation, critics were far harsher than President Trump.
Director Nadia Hallgren “doesn’t seem interested in pushing or provoking Obama to prompt any deep or uncomfortable truths,” iconic critic Roger Ebert wrote at the time. “‘Becoming’ emerges as a semi-worshipful depiction of a world-famous woman in flux.”
“One of Hallgren’s more irritating instincts is her repeated use of reaction shots from the audience: fans of all ages, men and women, laughing, crying or nodding in agreement but always gazing upon her with awe,” Ebert wrote. “We get it, she’s a rock star, and we’re feeling it too, but it gets ridiculous.”
“Obama deserves so much more than the worshipful glassy gaze of this documentary,” Time magazine reported.
“[M]any elements of the documentary feel stagy,” The New York Times said.
The documentary “is not the candid Michelle Obama film that people might have been waiting for,” The Times concluded. “And truthfully, I doubt we will ever see such a film in her lifetime. Instead, we get a familiar, albeit more carefree, Obama who, in her own words, learned a long time ago ‘to be much more scripted.'”
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Melissa Fine is the former executive editor of Casino Player, Strictly Slots, and Poker
Digest magazines. She is a UCLA graduate, news junkie, and dedicated Stargate SG-
1 fan. Melissa currently lives with her dog and two cats in a tiny town in the Sierra
Nevada foothills.
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