Hillary Clinton losing to US President Donald Trump has been 'pretty devastating

Former US Secretary of State and 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks during BookExpo 2017 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, June 1, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by AFP)

Former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton says losing the 2016 presidential election to Donald Trump has been “pretty devastating.”

In a commencement address at Medgar Evers University in Brooklyn in New York on Thursday morning, Clinton showed that the crushing defeat at the hands of the maverick Republican politician is still “with her.”

She took multiple swipes at President Trump during her speech and called on students to fight for social justice and civil rights.

“When I was here last year, someone asked if I would come back and speak at commencement,” Clinton said. “Now, I wish I had flown in from the White House, but I’m just as happy to be here anyway.”

US President Donald Trump speaks during a bill signing in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House June 2, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by AFP)

“I’ve had a few setbacks in my own life ... and losing an election is pretty devastating, especially considering who I lost to,” she said in a jab at Trump, who has created multiple crises at home and abroad since his inauguration on January 20.

“But even that pales in comparison to what Myrlie went through, and frankly what a lot of people go through every day,” she added.

Clinton was referring Myrlie Louise Evers–Williams, an African-American civil rights activist and journalist, who worked for more than three decades to seek justice for the 1963 murder of her civil rights activist husband, Medgar Wiley Evers. Medgar Evers College is named after him.

Medgar Wiley Evers, an African-American civil rights leader assassinated in 1963

Highlighting voting rights and participation in an election process, Clinton said, “Look at the efforts to suppress the vote, the principal right that Medgar Evers fought and died for.”

Clinton urged the graduates to “register immediately and vote in all elections. … All of the speaking out and protesting doesn’t mean much if you don’t help choose the elected officials who have the ability to shape your world.”

Elsewhere in her remarks, Clinton slammed Trump’s proposed travel ban on citizens of several predominantly Muslim countries.  

She said Trump’s “Muslim ban” is a “particularly egregious example,” that how governments regress on issues of civil rights and turn people against each other.

Clinton reaffirmed that “yes, it is a ban, as the president himself made quite clear this week.”

Demonstrators protest US President Donald Trump's executive immigration ban on February 1, 2017 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by AFP)

The Trump administration has asked the country’s Supreme Court to reinstate the president’s order to temporarily ban travelers from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen after it was blocked by lower courts.

Trump signed an executive order in late January, originally placing a 90-day travel ban on people from Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Iraq, and Yemen and a 120-day ban on any refugees.

Trump issued the revised travel ban on March 6 in which Iraq was removed from the list after his initial directive was blocked by a federal judge in Washington state and upheld by the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco, California.