Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday that she did not want everyone who voted for her in the 2016 presidential elections to automatically go into a "defensive crouch" upon Donald Trump taking office.
In remarks reported by ABC News, Clinton said she wanted her supporters to give the new president a chance before they immediately ruled him out.
"You know, I didn’t want everybody who voted for me just immediately going into kind of a defensive crouch," Clinton said.
Clinton said of Trump she initially thought that there may have been a shift from the "horrible rhetoric" and "divisive, insulting rhetoric that had fueled his campaign from the very first day."
According to Clinton, Trump may have convinced himself that this was how elections were conducted and was the best way to consolidate his position within the Republican party.
Clinton said she felt right after her loss that maybe Trump felt he had to act that way to win, and she wanted her voters to "give him a chance."
"Well that did not last long," Clinton said. "As Maya Angelou said, ‘When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.’"
Clinton recently stated she tried to get out of attending Trump's inauguration, but she called around to other former First Families and decided she had no choice.