Hillary Condemns Backlash Against Greta Thunberg by Those Living in a 'Fact-Free World'

WASHINGTON — Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton praised young climate activist Greta Thunberg, who recently addressed the United Nations’ Climate Action Summit.

Calling Thunberg’s remarks “powerful,” Clinton specifically applauded the portion of the speech where Thunberg told world leaders they had “stolen” her childhood. Clinton said the speech should be “required reading for every lawmaker.”

“She spoke for so many in her own generation when she condemned world leaders’ lack of urgency in responding to climate change by saying, ‘you have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words.’ Now, I know she engendered a backlash from the climate-change deniers, from the anti-anything coalition that takes on those who stand up and speak out and actually live in an evidence-based world instead of a fact-free world,” Clinton said at Georgetown University during the presentation of the Hillary Rodham Clinton Awards for Advancing Women in Peace and Security.

Clinton, the Democratic nominee for president in 2016, said the backlash against Thunberg “only made her message more significant” and “more important.”

“I personally am grateful to her,” she said.