Hillary’s Concession Speech Highlights

 

Here are the highlights from her appearance as posted by the New York Times:

• Senator Tim Kaine, who spoke first, said “I’m proud of Hillary Clinton because she has been and is a great history maker,” pointing to her long career of public service. He saluted her for winning the popular vote in the election, drawing cheers.

• Wiping a tear from her eye, Mrs. Clinton thanked her supporters and said “Thank you, my friends, thank you so very much for being here. I love you all too.”

• Mrs. Clinton said that she feels pride in the campaign that she ran and said of Mr. Trump, “I hope that he will be a successful president for all Americans.” 

• Mrs. Clinton said that she respects and cherishes the peaceful transition of power and said told her supporters that they must accept that Mr. Trump will be president. “We owe him an open mind and a chance to lead,” she said.

• After a long campaign, Mrs. Clinton acknowledged that the loss cuts deep. “This is painful, and it will be for a long time,” she said.

• Mrs. Clinton said that she hopes citizens will still fight for the values that she promoted in her campaign and that “the American dream is big enough for everyone.” However, she acknowledged that the country was more divided than she realized.

• Mrs. Clinton saluted President Obama’s “graceful” leadership, and thanked her family for buttressing her during a grueling campaign.

• Mrs. Clinton expressed regret that she did not shatter the glass ceiling, but said, “Someday, someone will and hopefully sooner than we might think right now.”

• Mrs. Clinton tried to lift the spirits of her supporters by advising them to never give up on their dreams. “I’ve had successes and I’ve had setbacks – sometimes really painful ones,” she said. “This loss hurts, but please, never stop believing that fighting for what’s right is worth it.”

• To the women who supported her, Mrs. Clinton said that “nothing has made me prouder than to be your champion.”

• In conclusion, Mrs. Clinton urged the country to “let us not grow weary, let us not lose heart.”

Obama to Ask Nation to Come Together

President Obama will make a statement at 12:15 p.m. on Wednesday about the results of the election, the White House said, in which he will call on the nation to come together after a divisive campaign.

The planned appearance to a handful of reporters in the Cabinet Room was timed to come after Hillary Clinton’s remarks in Manhattan publicly conceding the election to Donald J. Trump. The president called Mr. Trump from the White House early Wednesday morning to congratulate him on his victory, and phoned Mrs. Clinton to express “admiration” for her campaign, his aides said.

He is to meet with Mr. Trump on Thursday at the White House to discuss the monthslong transition process that will culminate in January with the Republican’s inauguration as the 45th president.

Obama Congratulates Trump

The White House said on Wednesday that President Obama made an early-morning call to Mr. Trump to congratulate him and invite him to a meeting there on Thursday to discuss preparations to hand over power to him over the next several weeks.

In an emailed statement that marked the first reaction by the White House to Mr. Trump’s upset election, Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said that Mr. Obama had also called Hillary Clinton, “and expressed admiration for the strong campaign she waged throughout the country.”

The president planned to make a statement later Wednesday from the White House “to discuss the election results and what steps we can take as a country to come together after this hard-fought election season,” Mr. Earnest said.

The routine postelection statement was an extraordinary moment after a contest that was unpredictable until the very last moment, in which Mr. Obama had campaigned feverishly for Mrs. Clinton, his chosen successor, calling Mr. Trump a dangerously unqualified candidate whose election would threaten the republic.

Mr. Obama had said his own legacy was on the ballot in the contest and that he would take it as a personal affront if voters did not rally behind Mrs. Clinton. And he repeatedly argued that he did not believe it was possible for Mr. Trump, who rose to political prominence questioning the authenticity of Mr. Obama’s American birth certificate, to win the White House.

Can Trump Calm the Markets – and the World?

The election returns on Tuesday sent stock futures into a dive and drew expressions of consternation from abroad. Mr. Trump campaigned and won as a proud agitator, but he has different responsibilities as the president-elect. Helping to avert international panic is one of them.

He managed to summon a more sober demeanor at points during the campaign, including in his victory speech — though never for very long. And even if he is comparatively placid on Wednesday, it is unclear that investors and foreign leaders will take things in stride.

Depending on how he handles the day, Mr. Trump may reveal both the range of his abilities as a political communicator and the true intensity of opposition and fear he faces across the globe.

 

Mr. Trump declared overnight that he would work even with people who had opposed him in the campaign, and he pledged to bring the country together. That will be no small task for a politician who fractured one political party and savaged another, and whom most Americans described in polls as biased against women and minorities.

Having long boasted of his accommodating personality and skill at salesmanship, Mr. Trump must now put those abilities to work — courting business executives and conservatives who opposed him, calming national security leaders and even seeking out relationships with Democrats.

Whether Mr. Trump can win over these constituencies may well determine if he is capable not just of winning, but of governing. How quickly will he pick up the phone?

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Will the Left Strike Back?

The most liberal wing of the Democratic Party was emboldened throughout the 2016 campaign, but it was held in check to some degree by Hillary Clinton’s relative moderation. With Mrs. Clinton defeated, that restraint is likely to disappear, and populist liberals, like Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, may quickly emerge as the party’s top spokespeople.

With Democrats cast out of the White House, it is difficult to predict what course they will take in battling Mr. Trump — whether they will resist him through filibusters and street protests, legislative mechanics or even attempts at compromise.

But there is unlikely to be much appetite among Democrats for conciliating Mr. Trump, and — as Republicans found over the last eight years — the loudest and most potent voices in the party are most likely to be those of blunt ideological opposition.

What Becomes of the Anti-Trump Right?

Dozens of Republican elected officials resisted Mr. Trump’s rise to power, including some who revoked their endorsements in the heat of the general election. Senators like Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona declared Mr. Trump unfit to lead, while ideological conservatives like Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Mike Lee of Utah warned of Mr. Trump’s indifference to the limits of government power.

These Trump critics on the right now face a wrenching political choice: to defer to him as the country’s new leader, or to take up a quasi-oppositional role against a Republican as he assembles his administration. Since Republicans kept control of the House and Senate, dissenters within Mr. Trump’s party may hold outsize influence over exactly how he can govern as president.