Michelle Obama tells how US election proved 'painful' for her

Michelle Obama has told Oprah the tumultuous US presidential election was “painful” to watch and revealed she woke up to the news of Trump’s victory the next day.

The outgoing First Lady made her comments during a farewell interview with Oprah Winfrey which went to air on Monday evening US time.

Obama described how she took the defeat in last month’s election of Democrat Hillary Clinton whom she campaigned strongly for.

“You know, this, this past election was challenging for me as a, as a citizen. To watch and experience. It was painful,” Obama told Winfrey during the CBS interview.

The First Lady later explained how on election night she had gone to sleep without knowing the result.

“I got up and I looked at my iPhone,” she told Winfrey. “And I saw it.”

Obama went on to say she had been preparing for the result during election night.

“You kind of saw the tea leaves. I kind of felt like how things were going by the time I went to bed.”

But although it wasn’t the outcome she was hoping for, Obama told Winfrey she would support the transition to a Trump administration “for the health of the nation”, although she did not mention Donald Trump by name.

However, she declared bipartisan support for the incoming president “wasn’t done when my husband took office”.

Pressed on this point by Winfrey, she explained: “There were people in Congress. There were leaders in Congress who did not support his presidency, which was not something that was good for the country. It was good for politics, but it wasn’t good for the country. And that wasn’t the right way to approach it.”

But in another part of the interview, Obama took a swipe at Donald Trump.

In a clip of the broadcast aired on Friday, the First Lady told Winfrey when Barack Obama took office after the 2004 presidential election there had been a sense of “hope” and that feeling is absent today.

“See, now we’re feeling what not having hope feels like. You know? Hope is necessary. It’s a necessary concept.”

“And Barack didn’t just talk about hope because he thought it was just a nice slogan to get votes. I mean, he and I and so many believe that if you - what else do you have if you don’t have hope?”