WASHINGTON, DC, Unites States (Reuters) Defeated Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton called on Wednesday (November 16) for a renewed fight for a more-inclusive United States despite disappointment over an election loss that laid bare national divisions.
In her first public remarks since conceding to Republican Donald Trump last week, Clinton said that many Americans were asking whether his victory meant the United States was still the country they thought it was.
“The divisions laid bare by this election run deep, but please listen to me when I say this. America is worth it, our children are worth it,” she said at a Children Defense Fund event honouring scholarship winners.
Although Fund founder Marian Wright Edelman called the nonprofit advocacy group’s event “a love-in for Hillary Rodham Clinton,” the former first lady said it had not been easy for her to attend.
“There have been times this past week when all I wanted to do was just to curl up with a good book or our dogs, and never leave the house again,” said Clinton, whose ties to the Children Defense Fund date back to her work there as a young law student.
Clinton, a former secretary of state, won the popular vote but lost the crucial electoral college tally to Trump, a New York real estate magnate who has taken a hard line on immigration and has opposed accepting Syrian refugees.