Hillary Clinton praised the confirmation of Loretta Lynch for the post of attorney general Thursday evening at a speech in New York City celebrating women.
It was Clinton’s first real speech as a declared presidential candidate, but it was not really a campaign speech. She had agreed to make her second appearance at Tina Brown’s the Women in the World conference before declaring her presidential bid, and mostly steered clear of politics.
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Earlier in the day, the Senate confirmed Lynch to replace Attorney General Eric Holder, after making the federal prosecutor wait longer than almost any cabinet official in history. “Finally, finally, Loretta Lynch will be able to assume the position she has trained her lifetime for,” Clinton said, condemning leaders “who even play politics with the nomination of our nation’s chief law enforcement officer.”
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The rest of Clinton’s speech at the David Koch theater in Manhattan was a fierier version of the one she’s given to women’s groups over the past two years. She talked about the need for equal pay legislation, condemned the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby ruling, and noted that improving the economic security of women benefits everyone. “It is outrageous that America is only the developed country in the free world that doesn’t guarantee paid leave to mothers of newborns,” the Democratic presidential candidate said.
And Clinton incorporated two anecdotes from the campaign trail as well. Clinton held roundtable meetings in Iowa last week and then in New Hampshire earlier this week, and told stories she heard from women at those events. She also made special reference to the LGBT community, saying, “We move forward when gay and transgender women are embraced as colleagues and friends, not fired from good jobs because of who they love.” Clinton appeared at Women in the World last year, where she and media mogul Tina Brown exchanged a high-five during a Q&A session. Clinton did not take questions Thursday. She has been combating allegations of corruption at her family’s charitable foundation this week.
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