The mother of former first lady, Michelle Obama, Marion Robinson, has died at the age of 86. I want to bring in CNN's Kevin Lipptack. Kevin, tell us more.

Yeah, and I think most Americans will know Mrs. Robinson as the mother of Michelle Obama and the grandmother of Sasha and Malia Obama, and a fixture really at the White House during the Obama administration. We are learning that she has passed away at the age of 86 from a lengthy statement, really quite beautiful statement, I will say, from her family members, including her daughter, Michelle Obama, her son, Craig Robinson, and Barack Obama, the former President. I'll just read you a little bit of what they wrote. They said, Marion Lewis-Shields Robinson, our mother, mother-in-law and grandmother, had a way of summing up the truths about life in a word or two. Maybe a quick phrase that made everyone around her stop and think. Her wisdom came off as almost innate, as something she was born with, but in reality, it was hard-earned, fashioned by her deep understanding that the world's roughest edges could always be sanded down with a little grace. And certainly, that is a lesson and a message she will have imparted on her daughter, her son-in-law, and her granddaughters as she moved with them from Chicago to the White House back in 2008, this enormous transition that she was on hand to make a little bit easier for members of her family.

The statement and previous statements from Mrs. Obama and President Obama have described her as really something of a grounding force in the White House, both for her own children and her grandchildren. It was interesting. They say in this statement, it took a healthy nudge, as they said, to get her to move to the White House at all. But in the end, they really describe her as recognizing the importance that that would have in raising grounded children. It's a very difficult place, I think, to grow up, and she eased that in some way. They say that rather than hobnobbing with Oscar her winners or Nobel Laureates, she preferred spending her time upstairs with a TV tray in the room outside her bedroom with big windows that looked out over the Washington Monument. This is so interesting. They say the only guest that she ever asked to meet while she was living in the White House was the Pope. Now, she was born in 1937 in Chicago. She grew up on the south side of Chicago. The statement delves into her biography. It's so interesting. They say that her father, because of the color of his skin, wasn't allowed to join a union.

You can really see in the arc of her life, starting in these days where her own father wasn't allowed to have a job, going all the way to living in the White House with the first African-American President, her son-in-law. Truly an American story of no other type. She wasn't spotted all that frequently around the White House when I was covering it. She wasn't at a ton of events or in the Rose Garden or in the driveway when reporters are around. But certainly, she was spending so much time with her granddaughters who were going to school, learning to drive, having some of the most formative years of their life in this building that can be such a crucible of tension. I think what you've heard their father, the President, and their mother, the former first lady, say is that Marion Robinson was able to keep things real in a way. She was seen sometimes around town. Sometimes you would see her at the Kennedy Center having a night out on the town, but certainly not a major presence in the Obama's presidency, but certainly in their personal lives and in the personal life of that White House, she was absolutely essential.

I remember the video of her and the young daughters coming to visit the Bush daughters during that transition period. She was on to look at what the bedrooms might look like, look at what their new lives might look like, this enormous change for them to come into the White House from Chicago. She was a key part of easing that transition and a key touchstone for her daughter in this new glare of attention.

Michelle Obama just tweeted this, and let me read it for our viewers. My mom, Marion Robinson, was my rock, always there for whatever I needed. She was the same steady backstop for our our entire family. And we are heartbroken to share she passed away today. Very sad indeed. Our deepest condolences to the family. I want to bring in on the phone right now the former Obama senior adviser and senior political commentator investigator, David Axelrod, along with our senior political analyst, Nia Malika Henderson. David, what's your reaction to the passing of Michelle Obama's mother, Mary Ann Robinson, a woman I assume you knew well?

Just I found sadness. Well, she was just a great lady. I mean, much of what was said reflects what I experienced over the course of my relationship with the Obamas, starting before he was a national political leader. But the move to Washington, as was said, was not something she thought. She was a Southsider through and through. Her husband worked for 37 years at a water filtration plant, worked through multiple sclerosis, and yet never missed a day of work. She was the rock of that family, as Michelle said. Michelle and her brother, Craig, both excelled in life and were very much the product of their mom's tutelage. She taught them how to be resilient, how to be responsible, and grace, taught them grace But in the White House, it was so interesting. She would, as was said, she did not take to the whole celebrity lifestyle. She shunned that. She would often slip out of the White House on her own and visit with friends outside the White House. She really wasn't looking for attention. As soon as the administration was over, she headed right back to the south side of Chicago. I will tell you, my last encounter with her was when Pete Seuss, the former White House photographer, came to the Institute of Politics that I I'm associated with at the University of Chicago.

He had a book of photos from the White House, and she was right there in the front row. When it was over, the students just gravitated to her, and she held forth. She was not a person of many words. The words were often laden with wisdom, but she was very talkative, and the kids were just transfixed. She said, as an aside, This is great. They never let me talk much when we were out there in Washington. It was just so much fun to see. She was like the Pied Piper with these young people. The last thing I would say is she was indispensable to the Obamas, whose big concern about running for President, about being elected President, was the impact it would have on their two young daughters when they had to be on the road and so on. The fact that Mrs Robinson was there to provide consistent, sustained, nurturing guidance, oversight, made everything possible. Those young women now are in part who they are, and they're both sensational young women because of the love and guidance of their grandmother who spent so much time with them during those four or three years in the house.

Yeah, this is the one thing I had, Mary Robinson would hate me a lot.

Truly a wonderful, wonderful woman. Nia Malika, you're with us as well. I you and our viewers to listen to how Michelle Obama described her mother during her portrait unveiling back in 2018. Listen to this.

Of course, I'm thinking about my mommy, Marion Robinson, who is sitting in the front row, supporting us like she has always done, always putting herself last on her list so that she could give me and Craig and our children everything that makes today possible.

Nia, Mrs. Robinson, of course, lived in the White House during the Obama presidency. What will you remember most about her during that time?

The thing about Ms. Robinson was that she wasn't a real figure in Washington, and that was on purpose. That was who she was. She was a Southsider. She was a Midwestener. She didn't believe in putting on air. Her real presence was felt, obviously, in the lives of her grandchildren and her daughter and her son-in-law. That was the purpose for her coming down here in Washington and coming from the south side of Chicago to make sure that those girls had a connection to Chicago and to Midwest values, to humility. Oftentimes, you hear Michelle Obama impart lessons about motherhood that she learned from her Mother, I would always think that I would love for Michelle Obama to write a book about the whitt and whittessisms that she learned from her mother about parenting young girls, particularly young girls who were in the spotlight. She talked about this idea that she wanted her girls to know that they were special to their families and to their friends, but they weren't special just because they were the daughters of a president. I think it's a little downhome African-American family values that resonated with so many Americans that that that that that Mrs.

Robinson obviously brought to Washington, brought to the White House, and brought to those girls' lives. I mean, this, I'm sure, is heartbreaking for Mrs. Obama, for her daughters who are now women and who owe a lot of their learning and the way in which they've navigated the world, not only to their mother, but certainly to their grandmother as well. It's a a real loss.