In one of her first public appearances since the election, Hillary Clinton on Tuesday night encouraged women to run for office and cheered the failure of Republicans’ bill to repeal and replace Obamacare.
“When Congress and the administration tried to jam through a bill that would have kicked 24 million people off their health insurance, defunded Planned Parenthood, jeopardized access to affordable birth control, deprived people with disabilities and the elderly of nursing homes and essential care, they were met with a wave of resistance,” Clinton said at conference in San Francisco held by the Professional BusinessWomen of California.
“When this disastrous bill failed, it was a victory for all Americans,” she later added.
She told the crowd to, “resist, insist, persist, enlist.”
The former presidential candidate told the audience that she was “thrilled to be out of the woods and in the company of so many inspiring women.”
“There is no place I’d rather be than here with you, other than the White House,” she said, smiling.
She urged the women in the crowd not to become discouraged.
“We need more women at any table, on any conference call or email chain where decisions are made. And a big part of that is encouraging more women to run for office,” Clinton said.
She also addressed Fox News host Bill O’Reilly’s recent comments about Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), saying that Waters was “taunted with a racist joke about her hair.” And Clinton called out White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer over his Tuesday exchange with reporter April Ryan. Clinton said Ryan was “patronized and cut off trying to ask a question.”
“Too many women, especially women of color, have had a lifetime of practice taking precisely these kinds of indignities in stride,” Clinton said. “But why should we have to? And any woman who thinks this couldn’t be directed at her is living in a dream world.”
Watch clips from Clinton’s speech:
