5 Times Hillary Clinton Verbally Slapped People She Was Up Against

Hillary Clinton has a pretty sharp tongue, something she has been honing since her college days. The longtime politician has been garnering attention for her communication abilities since her 1969 commencement speech at Wellesley, when she went on an off-script critical response to then-Senator Edward Brooke, who had given a speech before her. In his commencement address, the Republican from Massachusetts urged the young crowd — all women — to denounce the Vietnam War protests, offering the message that young people should support their government. 

As representative of her classmates, Clinton — then Rodham — couldn't stay quiet. "Every protest, every dissent ... is unabashedly an attempt to forge an identity in this particular age. That attempt at forging for many of us over the past four years has meant coming to terms with our humanness," she said. That speech, which received a seven-minute standing ovation, is often regarded as Clinton's introduction to the political world. "That was her first brush with notoriety or fame," her former professor of political science Alan Schechter said in the Hulu miniseries "Hillary" (via CNBC).

Over the next several decades, Clinton continued to hone her skills, adapting to the changes as needed. After Donald Trump introduced insults and clapbacks as an accepted way of dealing with political opponents, Clinton showed she wasn't going to stay behind. In the years following Clinton's unsuccessful bid for the presidency in 2016, the former secretary of state has verbally slapped people she was up against time and time again, showing she has all but given up on polite silence.

In February 2026, Hillary Clinton gave more than four and a half hours' worth of testimony before the House Oversight Committee amid the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, but she nearly didn't conclude her deposition. At one point, Clinton threatened to leave when her lawyer, Cheryl Mills, learned that the controversial Congresswoman Lauren Boebert (seen above before the deposition) had shared pictures of Clinton during the deposition with right-wing commentator Benny Johnson. 

Clinton was furious — to put it mildly. "I'm done with this. If you guys are doing that, I am done. You can hold me in contempt from now until the cows come home. This is just typical behavior," she slammed. Lawmakers are not allowed to share information from closed-door depositions before it goes into the public record. However, Boebert argued that she had taken the picture before the deposition began. But Clinton was not having it. "It doesn't matter!" she told Boebert, pointing a finger at her. "We are all abiding by the same rules."

Hillary Clinton finding out Lauren Boebert is posting photos of her testimony: "If you guys are doing that, I am done. You can hold me in contempt from now until the cows come home. this is just typical behavior... We all are abiding by the same rules."

Boebert: "I... I will... pic.twitter.com/WtmMwQo6aY

— Headquarters (@HQNewsNow) March 2, 2026

The congresswoman from Colorado quickly changed her tune. "I will take that down," Boebert, who was off-camera, could be heard saying. Clinton found the incident "very upsetting" because it showed Republicans were willing to break the rules, she told NBC News. Besides, Clinton had initially requested a public hearing, which Republicans denied. Even though she acquiesced before Clinton, Boebert later defended herself and Johnson on social media. "Benny did nothing wrong," she wrote on X. Johnson, for his part, called Clinton's scolding a "psychotic meltdown" on Instagram.

Lauren Boebert wasn't the only person Hillary Clinton scolded during her deposition in the Jeffrey Epstein probe. The former first lady also had harsh words for Congresswoman Nancy Mace when the Republican from South Carolina asked her to explain her ties to U.S Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who has admitted to visiting Epstein's private island in 2012. Clinton explained that her dealings with him went back to his days as head of Cantor Fitzgerald, a company that lost many lives to the 9/11 attacks.

Clinton was a senator representing New York at the time. "As I recall, something like 650 of his employees were murdered by terrorists that day. Howard Lutnick missed being a victim because he was delayed dropping his child off to kindergarten," Clinton explained. However, Mace continuously interrupted Clinton as she spoke, eliciting a big reaction. "You asked the question, I'm going to answer your question," she said, pointing a finger at her.

Mace didn't stay quiet, using her experience with sexual assault to get the former secretary of state to tone it down. "I am a survivor trying to look out for other survivors," Mace told her. But it didn't work. Clinton continued to try to bring the issue back to the question. "And I was taking care of the people who lost 3,000 lives!" she angrily replied, banging her hand on the table. Clinton was in a fighting mood, and it showed. "Now you're being defiant and indignant today," Mace responded. 

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).

February 2026 proved that Hillary Clinton was in a fighting mood. A few weeks before pointing her finger at Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace during her Jeffrey Epstein deposition, Clinton showed she wouldn't allow Czech Deputy Prime Minister Petr Macinka to make a joke at her expense at the Munich Security Conference. While discussing Donald Trump's policies, Clinton criticized the U.S. president's actions on the world stage. "He has betrayed the West, he's betrayed human values, he's betrayed the NATO charter, the Atlantic Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights," she said on the panel.

She further argued that Trump was creating living conditions in the U.S. similar to the ones seen in Russia under Vladimir Putin. "That's who Trump is modeling himself as," she continued. When the moderator asked Macinka, a member of the Czech Republic's right-wing movement, to weigh in, he mocked Clinton's speech by turning to her and saying: "First, I think you really don't like him." Macinka's sarcastic tone elicited laughter from the audience. But Clinton didn't just accept it. "You know, that is absolutely true," she responded, also drawing laughter.

Things got personal from then on. As Mackinka tried to praise Trump's war on identity politics, going into a passionate defense of the gender binary, Clinton kept drawing the conversation back to the U.S. president's foreign policies. "Does that justify selling out the people of Ukraine who are on the front lines dying to save their freedom and their two genders? That's what you're worried about?" she retorted.

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders got their claws out on the stage while fighting for the Democratic nomination ahead of the 2016 presidential elections, an electoral cycle that saw some of the worst moments in debate history. The former secretary of state and the senator from Vermont showed they weren't above taking personal jabs, hurling insults at each other's character, motivations, and qualifications. The latter became such a contentious issue that it bled off the stage, with Sanders taking particular offense at the implications he may not have enough experience.

At a New York event in April 2016, Clinton seemingly took a jab at Sanders' qualifications without using the word. "I think it is important to tell people what you're going to do for them and how you can get it done," she said (via NPR). She hit a nerve. A few hours later, Sanders brought up Clinton's record before a Philadelphia crowd, pointing out some of her controversial positions on the Iraq War, Wall Street, and trade agreements. "If you want to question my qualifications, let me suggest this: that maybe the American people might wonder about your qualifications, Secretary," he slammed.

Clinton and Sanders continued to spar over their differences, she snagged the nomination, lost the election to Donald Trump, and life went on. Except she seemingly never got over the issues with Sanders. "He was in Congress for years. He had one senator support him. Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him. He got nothing done," she said in the 2020 four-part series "Hillary" (Politico). 

Hillary Clinton arguably faced the hardest presidential campaign in recent U.S. history. Donald Trump kicked off a new era in American politics, one in which diplomacy and policy discussions were completely thrown out the window in favor of personal attacks, insults, and mockery of opponents. Add the advent of social media to that, and we have, well, what we have today. However, Clinton showed she too can play this game. Throughout 2016, Clinton used Trump's insecurities against him skillfully enough to ruffle feathers and elicit responses.

During a June 2016 speech in San Diego, she held nothing back, dealing a series of blows back to back. "Donald Trump's ideas aren't just different — they are dangerously incoherent. They're not even really ideas — just a series of bizarre rants, personal feuds, and outright lies," she slammed (via Time). She didn't stop there — not even close. "He is temperamentally unfit to hold an office that requires knowledge, stability and immense responsibility," she continued. "This is not someone who should ever have the nuclear codes."

If Clinton's goal was to hit a nerve, she seemingly accomplished it. After her speech, Trump took to X (then Twitter) to give his salty opinion of her address. "Bad performance by Crooked Hillary Clinton! Reading poorly from the telepromter [sic]! She doesn't even look presidential!" he wrote. In fact, he was offended even before her delivery, tweeting: "Crooked Hillary Clinton, who I would love to call Lyin' Hillary, is getting ready to totally misrepresent my foreign policy positions." It sounds like he knew what was coming.