Clinton trots out first attacks on Republicans

Hillary Clinton launched the first attacks against Republicans of her presidential campaign during a speech at the annual “Women in the World” summit in New York this week. 

Clinton, who regularly appears at the summit, which is now in its sixth year, focused her remarks on women’s pay and funding for abortion and birth control to take shots at the GOP’s presidential field.

{mosads}”There are those who offer themselves as leaders … who see nothing wrong with denying women equal pay; who offer themselves as leaders who would defund the country’s leading provider of family planning and want to let health insurance companies once again charge women just because of our gender,” Clinton said Thursday night.

“There are those who offer themselves as leaders who would deport mothers working to give their children a better life rather than risk ire of talk radio. There are those who offer themselves as leaders who even play politics with the nomination of our nation’s chief law enforcement officer and victims of human-rights trafficking,” Clinton said. 

Clinton congratulated Loretta Lynch on her Thursday confirmation as attorney general by the Senate. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had said he wouldn’t allow the upper chamber to leapfrog a vote on an anti-human-trafficking bill, stalled due to a bitter dispute on abortion language that was ironed out.

In her first major speech since earlier this month declaring her second White House bid, Clinton focused on women’s issues “to move America forward.”

“All the evidence tells us that despite the enormous obstacles that remain, there has never been a better time in history to be born female,” Clinton said, citing recent data from the Clinton and Bill & Melinda Gates foundations.

Clinton steered clear in the speech of questions about foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation.