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Hillary Clinton is pulling back the curtain five years after losing the 2016 presidential election, revealing for the first time what she planned to tell the country had she defeated Donald Trump.
Clinton, 74, shared an excerpt of her planned November 2016 White House victory speech Wednesday on NBC’s “Today” ahead of its full release Thursday on the MasterClass streaming platform.
“I’ve never shared this with anybody,” Clinton says of the speech she intended to give in New York on Nov. 8, 2016. “I’ve never read this out loud. But it helps to encapsulate who I am, what I believe in and what my hopes were for the kind of country that I want for my grandchildren and that I want for the world.”
Clinton then began reciting her would-be speech to her “fellow Americans.”
“Our values endure, our democracy stands strong and our motto remains: E pluribus unum. Out of many, one,” the former first lady said. “We will not be defined only by our differences. We will not be an ‘us versus them’ country. The American dream is big enough for everyone.”
Clinton then planned to cite the “long, hard campaign” she endured while saying voters were tasked to decide between “two very different” visions for the country.
“Fundamentally, this election challenged us to decide what it means to be an American in the 21st century,” Clinton continued. “And by reaching for a unity, decency, and what President Lincoln called ‘the better angels of our nature,’ we met that challenge.”
The former secretary of state then shifted the narrative in her prepared speech while staying on the unity theme to touch upon the significance of becoming the first female president in US history.
“Today with your children on your shoulders, your neighbors at your side, friends old and new standing as one, you renewed your democracy,” Clinton said. “And because of the honor you have given me, you have changed its face forever.”
Clinton intended to say she had met women during the hard-fought campaign who were born before getting the right to vote in 1920.
“They’ve been waiting a hundred years for tonight,” she continued. “I’ve met little boys and girls who didn’t understand why a woman has never been president before. Now they know, and the world knows, that in America, every boy and every girl can grow up to whatever they dream — even president of the United States.”
But that grand ambition didn’t come to fruition for Clinton, who lost the election to Trump by 74 electoral votes despite getting 2.8 million more votes.
Clinton got emotional at one point when recalling her mother, Dorothy Howell Rodham, who died in 2011. She had been abandoned as a child by her parents, who put her on a train to California when she was just 8 years old.
Clinton said she wished her mom was still alive to share the unbridled joy of winning the White House.
“I think about my mother every day,” Clinton said as her voice began to crack. “Sometimes I think about her on that train. I wish I could walk down the aisle.”
Clinton said she dreamed of sharing what would’ve been her historic win with her mother, imagining telling her that she grew up to become the first female president of the United States.
“I am sure of this as anything I have ever known: America is the greatest country in the world,” Clinton concluded. “And from tonight going forward, together, we will make America even greater than it has ever been for each and every one of us. Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.”
Clinton told NBC’s Willie Geist she hadn’t prepared a concession speech ahead of election night despite “a lot of bumps” during the final days of the campaign. Her full NBC interview is set to air Sunday.
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