Hillary Clinton attacked her Republican rival Donald Trump on Friday as someone who is fundamentally against women, in her first speech as the presumptive Democratic nominee.
“When Donald Trump says ‘Let’s make America great again,’ that is code for ‘Let’s take American backward,” Clinton said to cheers at a Planned Parenthood Action Fund event in Washington, D.C. “Back to the days when abortions were illegal, women had far fewer options and life for too many women and girls were limited. Well, Donald, those days are over.”
“That’s someone who doesn’t hold women in high regard,” Clinton said about Trump’s comments that women who get abortions should be punished. “Because if he did, he would trust women to make their own decisions.”
Clinton spoke to a friendly audience that at one point chanted “Hillary! Hillary!” She blasted Trump on a variety of women’s issues from paid family leave to appointing Supreme Court justices, and said Trump calls women “pigs.”
“Kind of hard to count on him to respect women,” Clinton said. “Anyone who would so casually agree to the idea of punishing women … that’s someone who doesn’t hold women in high regard.”
“Do we want to put our health, our lives, our futures in Donald Trump’s hands?” Clinton asked, saying her questions aren’t hypothetical questions, but rather ones that will be answered in the general election in November.
And in response to Trump saying that Clinton routinely plays the woman card, Clinton yelled, “Count me in!” as the crowd cheered.
Clinton also hit Trump on his inflammatory comments about Mexicans and Muslims.
Trump “doesn’t see all Americans as Americans. This election is profoundly different. It’s about who we are as a nation,” she said, calling on her supporters to help “stop Donald Trump” and “make history together in November.”
