Hillary Clinton Makes First Attacks on GOP

Hillary Clinton aimed the first substantial attacks of her new candidacy at Republican policies during a speech in New York City on Thursday, criticizing the GOP on immigration, health care and the delayed nomination of Loretta Lynch to Attorney General.

“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,” Clinton said at the annual Women in the World conference in Manhattan.

“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 continued to raucous applause from the friendly audience, referring to the months-long delay in Congress over Lynch’s nomination, which ended Thursday.

“This is not the way to move America forward. It’s not going to create a single job, raise anyone’s wages or strengthen our families,” she said.

Clinton’s keynote address Thursday night at the conference in New York City had been planned before she launched her campaign, a spokesperson for her campaign said.

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With the second week of her candidacy reaching its end, Clinton has thus far avoided attacking Republicans and instead focused on her small-grain campaign rollout in Iowa and New Hampshire, where she spoken at roundtables, visited factories and local businesses.

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When Republicans last weekend impugned Clinton for controversies surrounding her philanthropies acceptance of foreign donations, she called the attacks “distractions.”

Clinton said earlier this week in New Hampshire she wants to rise above partisan attacks during her campaign. “I am tired of people running to elect their fellow citizens by being nasty to each other,” she said at a house party in Claremont, New Hampshire. “That doesn’t solve a problem. Enough with the attacks and the anger, let’s find answers together and figure out what we’re going to do.”

Now, however, as her campaign ramps up, Clinton appears ready to offer more direct criticism over GOP policies.

“We have to have leaders who recognize that the time has come. There are those who offer themselves as leaders who see nothing wrong with denying women equal pay,” Clinton said, “or would defund the country’s leading provider of family planning, and want to let health insurance companies charge women once again just because of our gender” — a reference to Republican efforts to defund Obamacare.

“It isn’t leadership,” she said.