Hillary Clinton: We owe Donald Trump an ‘open mind’
Hillary Clinton asked her supporters to accept the results of the 2016 election and keep an “open mind” about Donald Trump’s presidency in a concession speech at a midtown Manhattan hotel Wednesday morning.
“Donald Trump is going to be our president,” Clinton told several hundred supporters in the New Yorker hotel ballroom. “We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead.”
Clinton said she hoped Trump “will be a successful president for all Americans” and that he would bring the country together.
“We have seen that our nation is more deeply divided than we thought,” a somber Clinton said. “We must accept this result and then look to the future.”
Clinton, flanked by her husband, Bill Clinton, and running mate, Tim Kaine, said the country must “cherish” and defend its constitutional rights. In the final weeks of her campaign, Clinton portrayed Trump and his autocratic tendencies as a threat to the country’s democracy, and sharply criticized his threat to reject the outcome of the election if he lost because the system is “rigged.”
“Our democracy enshrines the peaceful transfer of power,” Clinton said. “We don’t just respect that, we cherish it. It also enshrines other things: the rule of law, the principle that we are all equal in rights and dignity, freedom of worship and expression. We respect and cherish these values too, and we must defend them.”
Clinton thanked all the women who made her a “champion” in the cause of electing the nation’s first woman president. “I know we have still not shattered that highest, hardest glass ceiling, but hopefully someday, someone will—and hopefully sooner than we might think now,” Clinton said.
Kaine preceded her on stage and said with tears in his eyes that he was “so proud” of Clinton for making it so far in a country “that makes it uniquely difficult for women to be elected to federal office.” He said Clinton had made history again, by winning the popular vote in the election, prompting her supporters to cheer loudly.
“I’m proud of Hillary because she loves this country,” Kaine said. “Nobody had to wonder about whether Hillary Clinton … would accept the outcome of an election.”
Clinton thanked her campaign team, and said that running for president had been “the honor of my life.”
“I am so grateful for our country and all it has given me,” she said. “I count my blessings every single day that I am an American.”
Clinton addressed the country’s girls near the end of her speech. “Never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams,” she told them.
She concluded her remarks with a biblical passage, quoting from Galatians 6:9: “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”
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