Hillary Clinton speaks in Houston about effort to get women elected

Former presidential candidate to address Texas women's group

HOUSTON – Hillary Clinton was welcomed with a standing ovation Friday morning when she spoke at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in downtown about supporting a Texas group that helps women get elected.  

The annual Annie’s List Houston luncheon is sold out. Clinton, a 2016 presidential candidate and a former Secretary of State, is expected to address more than 2,400 people. The group said its main mission is to recruit, train, support and elect progressive, pro-choice women in Texas.

Given the recent events over the past 24 hours, Clinton wasted no time talking about President Donald Trump’s overnight military strike in Syria.

"Syria has been a wicked problem for a very long time," she said. "But the action taken last night needs to be followed by a broader strategy."

The U.S. launched 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at a military airfield in Homs.  It was in response to this  week’s chemical-weapons attack to which President Bashar Assad is accused of being tied to.

Hours before the attack, Clinton called for the  attack in the war-torn country.

“Assad has an air force, and that air force is the cause of most of these civilian deaths as we have seen over the years and as we saw again in the last few days,” said Clinton at a “Women in the World” summit in New York City.

She went on to say, “And I really believe that we should have and still should take out his air fields and prevent him from being able to use them to bomb innocent people and drop Sarin gas on them.” 

Clinton said she hopes the administration moves forward in a strategic and consistent with American values. She said she also hopes that they will recognize that when cannot contradict ourselves by wanting to protect Syrian babies, but in the same sentence talk about closing the America borders.

Clinton received a big applause following her comments about winning the Harris County votes by 12 points during the presidential election.

She also addressed the recent health care bill and spoke about the thousands of people who flooded into town halls and helped bring the Republicans "terrible" health care bill down.

"Activism is more important than ever,"  Clinton said.

She wrapped up her speech by speaking about the future of the Democratic Party in Texas.

"If Texans voted at the same percentage as Californians, taxes would already be blue," Clinton said.