On Friday, Hillary Clinton addressed the graduating class of her alma mater, Wellesley College.She didn't wade deeply into current politics, but used the opportunity to take a few jabs at President Trump. She joked about her 1969 Wellesley class being furious after the election of Richard Nixon, saying the class was angered over "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," she said, in obvious allusion to President Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey. "We got through that tumultuous time, and once again we began to thrive," she continued. Clinton also spoke about her November loss. "You may have heard that things didn't go exactly as I planned. But you know what, I'm doing O.K.," she said. She talked about spending time with her family after the election, walking in the woods, organizing her closets and added, "I won't lie, chardonnay helped a little too."But what helped her most, she said, was "remembering who I am, where I come from and what I believe."The Wellesley stage is a familiar one for her — Clinton delivered the commencement address as a a student and again 25 years ago.Clinton has made a few public appearances since last November's crushing loss, mostly addressing groups that advocate for women and children. She's also been seen hiking, shopping at bookstores and doing other regular people things in her "peaceful alternate universe," as the Huffington Post described it.The young activist was the first student to address the graduating class and she used that speech to lean into politics of the day. She challenged Sen. Edward Brooke, who spoke at the same event. He celebrated incremental progress and argued against protest, as NPR's Tamara Keith reported. When it was Clinton's turn, she ad-libbed a response to Brooke, declaring that empathy was not enough in politics."Part of the problem with just empathy with professed goals is that empathy doesn't do us anything," she said. "We've had lots of empathy; we've had lots of sympathy, but we feel that for too long our leaders have viewed politics as the art of the possible.""The challenge now is to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible possible," she continued.Earlier this week, Clinton blasted President Trump's budget saying that it, along with efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, "shows an unimaginable level of cruelty and lack of imagination and disdain for the struggles of millions of Americans."The commencement begins at 10:30 a.m. ET. We will update this post. Copyright 2017 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.
WATCH: Hillary Clinton Delivers Commencement Speech At Wellesley College
