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Chelsea Clinton on two-day swing through NC

Chelsea Clinton returned to North Carolina Tuesday to lead discussions on her mother's economic platform, open a campaign office and encourage people to register to vote.

Posted Updated

By
Matthew Burns
and
Laura Leslie
DURHAM, N.C. — Chelsea Clinton returned to North Carolina Tuesday to lead discussions on her mother's economic platform, open a campaign office and encourage people to register to vote.

Clinton, the daughter of former President Bill Clinton and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, discussed her mother's advocacy for women's issues and plans to expand the U.S. economy during a Women in Leadership panel at Wake Forest University.

In a Durham stop, Chelsea Clinton opened a campaign office and spoke briefly about the importance of the November election and getting people registered to vote.

"This is the most important presidential election of my lifetime," she said. "Whomever we elect will play a fundamental role in shaping the future that my children and their generation grow up in."

She said the gains made in recent years are at risk if Republican Donald Trump wins the presidency.

"As a female veteran, I'm hoping that we do elect the first woman president and we elect a great deal of change for everyone, but particularly for women," said attendee Tara Knight.

On Wednesday, Chelsea Clinton took part in a panel discussion about women and technology at a tech incubator in downtown Raleigh, where she talked about the importance of STEM education in leveling the playing field for women entrepreneurs.

She promoted her mother's plan to add computer programming and other STEM courses in middle school and her proposal to add 50,000 STEM teachers in middle and high schools nationwide. She said her mother's college financing plan would help by allowing STEM graduates to have some of their student debt forgiven if they teach in high-need areas, which could help get more women into the STEM education pipeline.

"When I graduated from Stanford, about one in five college graduates in the STEM fields that year – 2001 – were women, and now we’re less than 15 percent. So, we’re losing ground," she said. "If we want to stop that trajectory, we know we need to make investments early and consistently across the education pipeline."

In an interview with WRAL News, Chelsea Clinton dismissed criticism of her mother trying to hide her recent bout of pneumonia from the public.

"My mom is the most transparent candidate in modern political history," she said, noting the decades of tax returns the family has made public. "She released the same medical information that President Obama and Governor Romney did in 2012. She’s going to release even more, certainly more than Mr. Trump has done."

Chelsea Clinton also sounded off on her mother's tweet supporting the NCAA's decision to move its championship games out of North Carolina because of House Bill 2, which excludes gay and transgender people from discrimination protections.

"There is no place for discrimination in our country. I think we just have to make that clear and unequivocal," she said. "Discrimination also costs a lot of jobs in terms of impeding people’s opportunities and ambitions."

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