ANN ARBOR, MI - Touching on everything from Russian interference to the role of sexism in politics, former presidential nominee Hillary Clinton recapped lessons learned from the 2016 presidential election during a visit to Ann Arbor on Tuesday, Oct. 24.

Clinton took the stage at the University of Michigan's Hill Auditorium Tuesday evening to talk about her new book, "What Happened," that aims to identify the key factors that contributed to her losing the election to President Donald Trump.

The majority female audience that filled the auditorium welcomed Clinton to the stage with a standing ovation after Anne Curzan, UM English professor, introduced her.

Clinton started her speech with references to her previous visits to Michigan, including an "exhilarating" rally in Grand Rapids, stops at businesses in Detroit and Futuramic Tool and Engineering in Warren. Former President Barack Obama campaigned for Clinton in Ann Arbor just before the 2016 election, and Clinton gave a shout-out Tuesday to the Ann Arbor chapter of the Hillary Clinton Fan Club, which was the largest in the world at one point.

Clinton narrowly lost in Michigan in the 2016 presidential election. She received 47.33 percent of the state's votes, to Trump's 47.6 percent.

"The outcome in Michigan was not what I hoped or worked for. Let me just tell you that," Clinton said, to a round of laughter from the audience. "But I want today as I talk about the book I wrote to really urge everyone to not grow weary. We have a lot of work to do to stand up for the values that we share and the causes we believe in. That is more important now, here in Michigan and across America, than it's ever been."

Clinton was the first female presidential nominee from a major national party. She served as Secretary of State under Obama from 2009 to 2013. She was a U.S. Senator from 2001 to 2009, and was First Lady from 1993 to 2001, when her husband Bill Clinton was president.

Injecting plenty of humor in her comments, Clinton laughed about what she's doing with "so much time on my hands" now, the recent trip on some stairs that left her with a boot on her right foot, even as she walked on stage Tuesday, "those damn emails" and other moments from the campaign.

Clinton summed up four main lessons learned from her unsuccessful presidential campaign that are included in her book: the importance of perseverance, the need to get more women involved in politics, the threat of propaganda and "alternative facts" spread on social media and the forces that shaped the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, which she said are still at play in the political process.

"The forces at work in the 2016 election are still with us," Clinton said. "Now that was a perfect storm - deep currents of anger and resentment flowing through our culture, a political press that told voters my emails were the most important story, the unprecedented intervention in our election by the director of the FBI and the information warfare waged against us from the Kremlin."

She also took some jabs at Trump throughout her comments, saying he needs to do more to determine the extent of Russian interference in the election, and to implement harsher sanctions against Russia.

"The President swore an oath to faithfully execute the law and defend our Constitution, and he should start doing his job," Clinton said. "And the rest of us have to keep up the pressure."

Members of the audience had the opportunity to submit questions for Clinton in advance, which Curzan then asked on stage.

When asked what she changed her mind about over the course of writing "What Happened," Clinton said she had not initially realized the extent to which Russian control of information reaching voters influenced the election.

She compared the leak of the Democratic National Committee emails to Watergate, saying in this case, the theft was of virtual information.

"I did not understand as much as I learned in the process of the book what it meant to weaponize information," Clinton said. "It was revelatory for me, but so just sickening."

Curzan and Clinton also discussed the difficulties that face women in leadership roles and what can be done to encourage more women to enter politics.

"There is a price that you face (as a woman in politics), and you have to decide how much you're willing to pay. Because when you enter the public arena, as Eleanor Roosevelt said, you are immediately going to be attacked, criticized, questioned," Clinton said. "We just don't have enough women in positions of leadership in both the public and the private sector so that it becomes really unremarkable."

Clinton said it's important to build up girls' confidence, starting when they're young. People need to recognize the widespread practice of discrediting of women in leadership positions, she added.

Priya Varadan, 44, of Ann Arbor, and Sonali Vijayavargiya, 45, of Ann Arbor, said they left Clinton's book tour event feeling inspired to get engaged in the political process. They both said they are longtime supporters of Clinton, and they said they were shocked and heartbroken by the outcome of the 2016 election.

"If you look at her, she's not whimpering or crying," Vijayavargiya said. "She's saying, 'Get up, stand up and get engaged for yourself and for everybody around you.' I think her demeanor gives us encouragement. We cannot be on the sidelines."