Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton received a standing ovation at the Democratic National Convention on Monday as she dug into her 2016 playbook — highlighting gender as a focus of the presidential election.
After the roughly 1.5-minute long ovation — with cheers that appeared louder than they were for Vice President Kamala Harris herself earlier in the night — Clinton, 76, first thanked President Biden, leading to chants of “Thank you, Joe.”
“Thank you Joe Biden for your lifetime of service and leadership. Now we are a new chapter,” Clinton said.
The 2016 Democratic presidential nominee went on to discuss the importance of women running for president, highlighting Shirley Chisholm’s 1972 White House bid and Geraldine Ferraro’s 1984 nomination to be the first female vice president.
“If we can do this, we can do anything,” Clinton said, before reminiscing about her own presidential campaign.
Follow along with The Post’s live reporting of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
“And then there was 2016, when it was the honor of my life to accept our party’s nomination,” Clinton recalled. “Nearly 66 million Americans voted for a future where there are no ceilings on our dreams.”
“And after the race, we refused to give up on America,” she said, referencing the women’s march in Washington, DC., which has become an annual event, and the many women who have run for political office since Trump’s 2016 victory.
“I wish my mother and Kamala’s mother could see us,” Clinton longed. “They would say, keep going.”
The former New York senator declared that Harris would “restore abortion rights nationwide” and touted the former California attorney general’s record on crime.
“As a prosecutor, Kamala locked up murderers and drug traffickers,” Clinton noted. “She will never rest in defense of our freedom and safety.”
The former first lady then took a number of swipes at Trump, stirring up the crowd.
“Donald Trump fell asleep at his own trial. And when he woke up, he made his own kind of history. The first person to run for president with 34 felony convictions,” Clinton said, leading to chants of “Lock him up.”
Clinton smiled and nodded as the crowd shouted the familiar line, which Trump supporters regularly deployed at her in 2016.
“We put a lot of cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling,” Clinton said, going back to the central theme of her speech. “And tonight, we are so close to breaking through once and for all.”
