Michelle Obama slammed US President Donald Trump for being 'mediocre' during a speech at a charity event in Scotland - but ruled herself out of ever running for president.

The former First Lady arrived in Edinburgh on Tuesday evening for the charity event organised by The Hunter Foundation and described as her first official international appearance since leaving the White House.

Up to 900 guests packed into the EICC venue in anticipation of hearing Mrs Obama shed light on her time as First Lady during a conversation moderated by five-time Olympic medallist Dame Katherine Grainger.

While talking about Trump, she said: 'There's something wrong with us as women that we would make that choice... we can't be okay with mediocrity with men, but demand excellence from women.'

Her strong words against Trump come just hours after her husband Barack gave a sharp rebuke to Trump by warning that 'strongman politics are ascendant' in a speech in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Michelle Obama slammed Donald Trump as being 'mediocre' during a speech at a charity event in Scotland (pictured)

Although she didn't mention Trump by name, Mrs Obama said 'the last election in my country does not give me hope,' according to The Scotsman.

But Mrs Obama also told hundreds of people at the charity gala dinner that she isn't interesting in running for president herself during a Q&A session.

She told the audience that her daughters Malia and Sasha wouldn't let her run for office and described the presidency as a 'hard job' that is 'gruelling for a family.'

She added: 'We have lived in a bubble for the past eight years. We need to believe in the next generation.'

But Mrs Obama said she would continue to 'do as much as ever outside of politics.'

'Leaders have to know when to get out of the way for the next generation,' she added.

The former First Lady, pictured here in May, said of Trump: 'There's something wrong with us as women that we would make that choice... we can't be okay with mediocrity with men, but demand excellence from women'

She also spoke about gender equality, a topic she has spoken about on numerous occasions in the past.

'I sat at a lot of tables with men who had more money and more degrees and more confidence who I thought were saying things that were wrong that I assumed I just didn't understand,' she said.

'Ten years on they're still talking rubbish. It's time for them to listen.'

Mrs Obama added: 'We have a lot of work to do. We're not there yet... I want girls to feel like they own the planet - just treated equally.'

In her eight years in the White House, Mrs Obama worked to transform the role of first lady, becoming a role model and champion for women and girls across America and beyond.

The Harvard law graduate led initiatives aimed at tackling childhood obesity and together with Jill Biden, wife of former vice president Joe Biden, worked to improve life for servicemen and women and veterans.

Her Reach Higher programme aimed to inspire more young people in the US to continue education after high school by going on to college or university while she also campaigned to help more girls across the world attend school.

The event was also attended by singer Beverley Knight (pictured outside The Hunter Foundation event) who tweeted her delight at meeting Mrs Obama

Judy Murray, Mark Beaumont and Beverley Knight were among the guests attending the fundraising dinner.

'I. Just. Met. #MichelleObama [shocked emoji] [heart-eyes emoji],' Knight wrote on Twitter.

Speaking ahead of the function, Knight said: 'This is one of those moments in your life where it's not just a joy, not just an honour, it's seismic, it's historical. So for me, I'm beaming.

'I have never met Michelle Obama so tonight this is desperately exciting for me.

'When I told my mum, she was almost in tears. For me as a woman, for me as a black woman, it's just so huge.'

She added: 'The thing with the Obama family is you could see what kind of people they were from the second they took office. President Obama is so altruistic and Mrs Obama is so graceful and charismatic - just decent people.

Mrs Obama was spotted landing at Edinburgh airport in a private jet on Tuesday (pictured)

'For me to be a part of that, to have some of that little fairy dust on me, it's just wonderful.'

A table for 10 people at the event cost £5,000. All profits will be distributed to over 1,000 good causes via the Kiltwalk charity.

Ahead of the event, THF founder Sir Tom Hunter said: 'We're delighted to have the former first lady come and do her first international appearance since leaving the White House, so we're very chuffed that she's chosen Scotland to do so.

'For these events we've had some very high-profile men.

'We've had the former first lady's husband last year, President Obama, President Clinton, George Clooney.

The former First Lady was seen leaving the airport accompanied by a large motorcade

'Therefore I think it was time to find a woman who's on the world stage and I don't think we could have got anybody better.'

Mrs Obama is understood to have entered the venue via a back entrance, having been spotted landing at Edinburgh airport in a private jet earlier on Tuesday.

Her attendance at the gathering saw her follow in the footsteps of her husband, former US president Barack Obama, who visited Scotland in May last year for a similar event with the foundation.

Last year, about 1,200 people - including First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and author JK Rowling - attended when the former president made his first trip to Scotland, with the dinner he spoke at raising £670,000 for good causes.

Obama's sharp rebuke to Trump as he warns that 'strongman politics are ascendant', 'shameless politicians double down on lies' and 'the free press is under attack'

Former U.S. President Barack Obama took aim at 'strongman politics' in his highest-profile speech since leaving office on Tuesday.

In an impassioned speech he urged people around the world to respect human rights and other values now under threat while marking the 100th anniversary of anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela's birth.

While not mentioning his successor President Donald Trump by name, Obama's speech in South Africa countered many of Trump's policies, rallying people to keep alive the ideas that Mandela worked for including democracy, diversity and tolerance.

Obama spoke to a crowd of more than 10,000 people at a cricket stadium in Johannesburg in the centerpiece event of celebrations marking 100 years since Nelson Mandela's birth.

Obama opened by calling today's times 'strange and uncertain,' adding that 'each day's news cycle is bringing more head-spinning and disturbing headlines.' These days 'we see much of the world threatening to return to a more dangerous, more brutal, way of doing business,' he said.

Warning: Obama's speech in South Africa countered many of Trump's policies, rallying people to keep alive the ideas that Mandela worked for including democracy, diversity and tolerance.

Address: Graca Machel, Nelson Mandela's widow, spoke before Obama at the Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg, South Africa, marking 100 years since his birth

Strongman politics: Obama used the phrase after his successor's press conference with Russia's Vladimir Putin, which was widely condemned for Trump making an equivalence between

Memory: Obama delivered the 16th Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture as his most high-profile intervention since leaving office and to mark 100 years since the birth of the South African anti-apartheid campaigner and prisoner turned president

Crowd: 10,000 people were at the Wanderers cricket stadium in Johannesburg, South Africa's economic capital, for the speech

Making moves: Obama danced with singer Thandiswa Mazwai who performed after his speech, with Mandela's widow Graca Machel and South African president Cyril Ramaphosa also taking part

He targeted politicians pushing 'politics of fear, resentment, retrenchment,' saying they are on the move 'at a pace unimaginable just a few years ago.'

He attacked 'strongman politics,' saying that 'those in power seek to undermine every institution ... that gives democracy meaning.'

Obama added: 'I am not being alarmist, I am simply stating the facts. Look around.' He also spoke up for equality in all forms, saying that 'I would have thought we had figured that out by now.'

And he warned: 'Social media, once seen as a mechanism to promote knowledge, has proved to be just as effective promoting hatred and paranoia and conspiracy theories.'

He also spoke up more than once for the 'free press' saying it was 'under attack' and needed to be defended - in contrast to Trump calling the media 'the enemy of the people'.

'Democracy depends on strong institutions,' he said.

'It's about minority rights, and checks and balances and freedom of speech, free press, and the right to protest and petition the government, and an independent judiciary, and everybody having to follow the law.'

And the former president spoke about the 'utter loss of shame among political leaders when they're caught in a lie and they just double down and lie some more'.

'People just make stuff up!' he said to laughter an applause from the audience.

'Given the strange and uncertain times we are in, each day's news cycles brings more head-spinning and disturbing headlines, I thought maybe it would be useful to step back for a moment and get some perspective,' Obama said at the start of his speech.

'It is in part because of the failures of governments and powerful elites... that we now see much of the world threatening to return to an older, more dangerous, more brutal way of doing business,' Obama said.

'You have to believe in facts, without facts there is no basis from cooperation,' he said.

He said that if there was not agreement on facts, it was impossible to have dialogue - saying that climate change was an example of that.

'I can't find common ground when someone says climate change is not happening.'

Trump has pulled the United States out of the Paris Accord on combating it and questioned whether it is genuine.

But Obama reminded the audience that 'we've been through darker times. We've been through lower valleys,' and he closed with a call to action: 'I say if people can learn to hate, they can be taught to love.'

His words were met with cheers by a crowd of about 14,000 people gathered at a cricket stadium in Johannesburg for the speech, which was streamed online.

'Just by standing on the stage honoring Nelson Mandela, Obama is delivering an eloquent rebuke to Trump,' said John Stremlau, professor of international relations at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg, who called the timing auspicious as the commitments that defined Mandela's life are 'under assault' in the U.S. and elsewhere.

'Yesterday we had Trump and Putin standing together, now we are seeing the opposing team: Obama and Mandela.'

This is Obama's first visit to Africa since leaving office in early 2017. He stopped earlier this week in Kenya, where he visited the rural birthplace of his late father.

Obama's speech highlighted how the Nobel Peace Prize winner, who was imprisoned for 27 years, kept up his campaign against what appeared to be insurmountable odds to end apartheid, South Africa's harsh system of white minority rule.

Delegation Barack Obama was joined on stage by South African president Cyril Ramaphosa. Obama urged Africans and people around the world to respect human rights and equal opportunity in his speech to mark the late Nelson Mandela's 100th birthday

Reception: Members of the Soweto Gospel Choir sang the South African national anthem before Obama's speech

Audience: Virgin billionaire Sir Richard Branson, with his son Sam Branson (center) and wife Joan Templeman (left) was in the audience. He hosted Obama for a vacation after he left office

Embrace: Barack Obama greets Nelson Mandela's widow, Graca Machel as he arrives on stage to sit between her and Cyril Ramaphosa

Also in attendance: Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini, who as the leader of the Zulu nation is recognized in the South African constitution was present, as was former Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi

Big appearance: Obama was front and center as he marked 100 years since the birth of Nelson Mandela

Mandela, who was released from prison in 1990 and became South Africa's first black president four years later, died in 2013, leaving a powerful legacy of reconciliation and diversity along with a resistance to inequality, economic and otherwise.

Obama has shied away from public comment on Trump, whose administration has reversed or attacked notable achievements of his predecessor. The U.S. under Trump has withdrawn from the 2015 Paris climate agreement and the Iran nuclear deal while trying to undercut the Affordable Care Act or 'Obamacare.'

Instead of commenting on politics, Obama's speech drew on broader themes and his admiration for Mandela, whom America's first black president saw as a mentor.

When Obama was a U.S. senator he had his picture taken with Mandela. After Obama became president he sent a copy of the photo to Mandela, who kept it in his office. Obama also made a point of visiting Mandela's prison cell and gave a moving eulogy at Mandela's memorial service in 2013, saying the South African leader's life had inspired him.

Many South Africans view Obama as a successor to Mandela because of his groundbreaking role and his support for racial equality in the U.S. and around the world.

Moses Moyo, a 32-year-old Uber driver, was among the thousands lining up for Obama's speech. 'I think he'll speak about how Mandela changed the system here in South Africa, how he ended apartheid and gave hope for the poor and encouraged education,' he said.

Many people in South Africa are discouraged by corruption, he added, as the ruling African National Congress struggles to maintain the legacy that Mandela and others established.