Democratic US Senator Gillibrand to launch 2020 White House bid

Gillibrand then won the seat in a special election and was re-elected to six-year terms in 2012 and 2018. She has attributed the ideology shift to representing a liberal state versus a more conservative district.

As a senator, Gillibrand was outspoken about rape in the military and campus sexual assault years before the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment and assault first arose in 2017.

In late 2017, as she pushed for a bill changing how Congress processes and settles sexual harassment allegations made by staffers, some prominent party leaders criticized her for being the first Democratic senator to urge the resignation of Senator Al Franken, who was accused of groping and kissing women without their consent.

During the same period, Gillibrand said Hillary Clinton's husband, former President Bill Clinton, should have resigned from the White House after his affair with intern Monica Lewinsky, which led to his impeachment by the House. Some criticized the senator for attacking the Clintons, who had supported her political career.

Gillibrand backs a Medicare-for-all bill championed by Democratic Party liberals. She was the first senator to call in June 2018 for the abolishment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) amid controversy over Trump's separation of families entering the country at the US-Mexico border.

"I believe healthcare should be a right and not a privilege," Gillibrand told Colbert.

In a dig at Trump, Gillibrand said the first thing she would do if elected to the White House is "restore what's been lost" like the "integrity and compassion of this country."

"You have to start by restoring what's been lost, restoring our leadership in the world, addressing things like global climate change and being that beacon of light and hope in the world," Gillibrand said.

Trump and Gillibrand have sparred publicly in the past. In December 2017, the president targeted her with a sexually tinged tweet, calling her a "total flunky" who had "come to my office 'begging' for campaign contributions not so long ago (and would do anything for them)."

Gillibrand shot back immediately on Twitter.

"You cannot silence me or the millions of women who have gotten off the sidelines to speak out about the unfitness and shame you have brought to the Oval Office," she wrote.

Reuters