FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. (WSVN) - Hillary Clinton made a South Florida stop on her book tour to talk about how she felt during the 2016 election.
Clinton spoke at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale, Tuesday night.
Although the event began at 7 p.m., attendees already began to line up outside the building an hour prior.
Though a handful of protesters waited outside the venue, event organizers said a sold-out crowd had turned out for Clinton.
“I was one of the attorneys in Dade County that monitored the voting booths for all the elections,” said Angie Angelis, who attended the event.
Angelis and her friend Linda Palmer drove up from West Kendall, hoping to make a night of the talk.
“It’s always bittersweet,” Palmer said. “We really would have liked her to be the leader of this nation right now.”
Early into the conversation, the former first lady spoke about Sunday’s massacre in Las Vegas. “I’m devastated by what happened in Las Vegas,” she said.
Clinton said the National Rifle Association spent $30 million on campaign ads against her, and now is the time to talk about guns in the United States.
“Now, some people say — you heard it — they say, ‘Well, it’s not about guns, it’s about mental health,'” said Clinton. “One of the very first laws that was passed under this new administration in which the president signed into law was yet another item on the gun lobby’s wish list to weaken the laws to keep guns out of the hands of people suffering from serious mental illness.”
Upcoming legislation was on the night’s agenda. “Now, even though the republicans in Congress have postponed the vote that was set for this week, they are still expected to take up this legislation that would repeal those protections, and I’m not making this up, they call their bill the ‘Hearing Protection Act,'” said Clinton.
She paused as some attendees began to laugh. “I mean, we really are living in a reality TV show,” she said.
She also touched on climate change, as well as the Trump administration’s response to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands after Hurricane Maria.
“And so, when I saw that our own government wasn’t doing anything, you know, I tweeted to the president, the secretary of defense and the Department of Defense, ‘Hey, guys! Send some naval assets!'” she said.
She also talked about NFL players taking a knee as a form of protest against racial inequality.
“Let’s be clear: Those players are not protesting the national anthem or the flag. They’re protesting racism and injustice, and they have every right to do so,” said Clinton.
Before sitting down for a Q-and-A, Clinton said the most important thing for Americans to keep an eye on is Russian interference in the election.
“Every American should be disturbed by the fact that Russian agents used Facebook and Twitter to place targeted attack ads and negative stories intended not only to hurt me but to fan the flames of division within our society,” she said.
Clinton has slowly started getting back into public life after losing the presidential election.
During the final week of the campaign, she spent some time in Broward County before returning to Fort Lauderdale for her Hillary Clinton Live tour.
It has been now close to a year since Clinton lost the election, but so many of her supporters then are still supporting her now.
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