Hillary Clinton: Number of women appointed to top jobs by Donald Trump 'lowest in generation'
Hillary Clinton has blasted the number of women appointed to top jobs by President Trump as “the lowest in a generation”.
After months out of the limelight, Mrs Clinton used her first public speech since her defeat in last November’s US election to attack the lack of diversity in the Trump administration.
“Recently, photos have been making the rounds on social media, showing groups of men in Washington making decisions about women’s health to strip away coverage for pregnancy and maternity care, or limit access on reproductive healthcare around the globe,” said the former First Lady.
“We shake our heads and think, ‘How could they have not invited any women to the table?’.”
The defeated presidential candidate looked relaxed and rested at last night’s sell-out speech to the 2017 Professional BusinessWomen of California Conference in San Francisco.
She joked that there was no place she’d rather be - “other than the White House”.
But the speech quickly turned serious as she took the Trump’s administration to task without once using the name of the president.
Mrs Clinton angrily rebuked Mr Trump’s press secretary Sean Spicer - again without naming him - for chiding a black woman journalist earlier yesterday for shaking her head during a White House news conference.
“Too many women have had a lifetime of practice taking this kind of indignity in stride,” Mrs Clinton said, referring to Mr Spicer’s awkward exchange with Urban Radio corresponded April Ryan.
“Just look at all that’s happened in the last few days to women who were simply doing their jobs,” she added.
“April Ryan, a respected journalist with unrivaled integrity, was doing her job just this afternoon in the White House press room, when she was patronised and cut off trying to ask a question.
“One of your own, California congresswoman Maxine Waters, was taunted with a racist joke about her hair,” she continued.
Mrs Clinton was referencing right wing Fox TV anchor Bill O’Reilly’s remarks yesterday when he was asked about his thoughts on the lawmaker’s speech on Mr Trump and race on the House floor on Monday.
“I didn’t hear a word she said,” Mr O’Reilly replied, as he laughed on the show. “I was looking at the James Brown wig.”
Mr O’Reilly later apologised for those comments.
The beaten Democrat said she was targetted as a woman in the election campaign.
“I mean, it’s not like I didn’t know all the nasty things they were saying about me. I thought some of them were kind of creative,” said Mrs Clinton. “But you just have to keep going.”
She went on to describe the president’s failure last week to push his “disastrous” replacement health care plan through US congress as “a victory for all Americans”.
“When Congress and the administration tried to jam through a bill that would’ve kicked 24 million off their health insurance they were met with a wave of resistance,” she said to a round of applause.
She called on Americans to keep up the fight “for a fairer, big-hearted, inclusive America”.
“There’s a little mantra I’ve been repeating to myself lately. The kind of thing that pops into your head when you take a lot of long walks in the woods.
"But as I think about the outpouring of activism we’re seeing - despite all the noise and the nonsense - four words keep coming back to me: resist, insist, persist, enlist.”
“I’ll right there with you every step of the way,” she added.
