Hillary Clinton Rips Trump In Wellesley College Commencement Speech

WELLESLEY, MA — Hillary Clinton returned to Wellesley College on Friday to deliver the commencement speech at her alma mater almost 50 years after delivering the school's first student commencement address as a 21-year-old graduating senior. This time, the former secretary of state took "tell us how you really feel" to new heights, eviscerating the current president and her one-time opponent, Donald Trump.

Clinton touched on everything from "alternative facts" to the obsession with crowd size and the president describing her as a "nasty woman." She drew some not-so-thinly veiled parallels between Trump and Richard Nixon, "a man whose presidency would eventually end in disgrace with his impeachment for obstruction of justice after firing the person running the investigation into him at the Department of Justice," Clinton said.

It is important to note that Nixon technically resigned, albeit with almost certain impeachment looming.

The Trump administration's shaky relationship with the truth, Clinton argued, can "mark the beginning of the end of a free society."

"That is not hyperbole, it is what authoritarian regimes throughout history have done," Clinton said.

Clinton also attacked the president on policy, most notably his proposed budget, which she described as "an attack of unimaginable cruelty on the most vulnerable among us – the youngest, the oldest, the poorest and hardworking people who need a little help to gain or hang on to a decent middle class life."

But she ended her speech on a high note, delivering a message of encouragement to the young women in the audience as they strike out on their own. She emphasized holding on to dreams, ambitions, even anger, and channeling them to "make a difference in the world."

"It's often during the darkest times that you can do the most good," Clinton said.

The message echoed that of her 1969 student commencement address, when, as political science student Hillary Rodham, she encouraged her classmates to make "what appears to be impossible, possible."

Photo by Gage Skidmore/Flickr