Hillary Clinton pledged to “publicly request” that the Trump administration “not end our efforts making women’s rights and opportunities” central to US policy.
Speaking to CNN’s Chrisitiane Amanpour at a Women for Women event, Clinton praised Defense Secretary James Mattis for making the case for maintaining US foreign aid funding, despite a budget request by President Donald Trump that would cut it.
“I am hoping that because of voices like Jim Mattis and others that that will begin to influence the administration,” she said.
Clinton, who has not shied away from critiquing Trump, is addressing two groups in New York Tuesday that have plenty of gripes with the new president.
The former secretary of state is beginning to chart her post-2016 election life with a series of speeches and a new book. She first headlined the Women for Women International event before later speaking at a Planned Parenthood 100-year anniversary gala.
Women for Women International is a decades-old nonprofit that advocates for women in war-torn and conflict-ridden areas of the world. The group has protested the President’s plan to bar certain refugees from entering the United States.
Planned Parenthood has been vocal in their opposition to Trump, slamming many of his appointees and the Republican plan to defund the organization.
Both venues offer Clinton the opportunity to comment on Trump’s first 100 days in office and organizers at Planned Parenthood expect the 45th President will come up in the former Democratic nominee’s speech.
Since spending months out of the limelight after the 2016 campaign, Clinton has re-emerged onto the public stage as the Republican Party grapples with Trump and the Democratic Party searches for a leader.
In a series of speeches, Clinton has shown a willingness to knock the President, even if indirectly.
In March, Clinton called the Trump-backed health care bill “disastrous” and knocked the plan for doing away with a maternity care requirement in health care.
“Really? Take away maternity care?” Clinton said during her keynote address at the annual conference hosted by the Professional BusinessWomen of California. “Who do these people talk to?”
And in April, Clinton told another group of women that she is “deeply concerned” with how Russia meddled into the 2016 election.
“A foreign power meddled with our election and did so in a way that we are learning more about every single day,” she said.
She also added that it was “somewhat gratifying” to see Trump mystified about how complex health care is.
“You know, health care is complicated. Right?” Clinton said in a jab at Trump. “That was somewhat gratifying.”
The small group of aides who are still in regular contact with Clinton stress, though, that the recent uptick in Trump criticism does not mean the former secretary of state is on a comeback. Clinton, they say, has remained in touch with an array of groups and while it may appear she is growing more political, the speeches don’t foretell a more forceful jump back into the political fray.
The aides say that Clinton will knock the Trump administration when she sees fit — as evidenced by an April broadside against White House press secretary Sean Spicer after he chided a black female journalist for shaking her head at a news conference.
“Too many women have had a lifetime of practice taking this kind of indignity in stride,” Clinton said.
But they say the former secretary of state is more interested in helping the Democratic Party in 2018 and beyond then resuscitating her own political career.