Hillary Clinton Offered Wise Advice to Amanda Gorman on Running for President

To celebrate International Women’s Day, Amanda Gorman joined a virtual Q&A with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Gorman, who performed her poetry at this year’s inauguration, has mentioned that she plans to run for president in the future, and she was treated to some words of wisdom during the panel.

During the Q&A, the youth poet laureate asked them a personal question: “I have some interest in the public sphere, and I wanted to ask: What advice would you give to your 23-year-old self, or me, you know?”

“You have the ability to express aspirations and give people voice that they didn’t know they had, and good leadership does that,” Clinton said. “So if you follow through with your goal of running for president, you can take every day and think about how you can use your gift to try to lift up other people so they know that they are not alone.”

While Clinton complimented Gorman’s aspirations, Pelosi also responded with her own words of advice, telling Gorman, “When women are thinking about what path they may take, they should feel very confident about who they are and chalk up their experiences, whether they were positive or negative, as a plus. And if they have any questions about it, they should be inspired by you.”

The Q&A, hosted by Chrissy Teigen, was a fundraiser presented by both of Clinton and Pelosi’s political action committees, Onward Together Committee and PAC to the Future.

During President Joe Biden’s inauguration in January, Gorman easily captured the country’s heart and attention with her captivating words in “The Hill We Climb.” The poet—who just turned 23—is the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history and is a graduate of Harvard University. Along with her award-winning moment earlier this year, she is a writer, author, and activist. Her books, Change Sings and The Hill We Climb and Other Poems, will be released in September 2021, while the special edition of her world-renowned poem “The Hill We Climb” will be released later this month.

A future with Gorman as U.S. president sounds like the dream, and she’s clearly capable of it.