Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is taking heat for saying half of Republican nominee Donald Trump’s supporters are from a “basket of deplorables”.
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She issued a statement today expressing “regret” for the being “grossly generalistic”. “The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic – you name it”.
Clinton made the remarks at the LGBT For Hillary Gala at the uber posh Cipriani Wall Street restaurant. He tweets and retweets their offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric.
The other “basket”, she said, is comprised of people who feel that the government and the economy has “let them down”.
She said she regrets only half of her statement, emphasizing that it is “really deplorable” that Trump is affiliated with people from the right-winged “alt-right movement”, and that “David Duke and other white supremacists see him as a champion of their values”.
He said Trump’s supporters are hard-working Americans and include “every class of this country who know we can make America great again”. She has made similar comments recently, including on an Israeli television station.
Clinton’s attempt to walk back her original comment raises the obvious question: What percentage of Trump supporters does she now think are a “basket of deplorables”?
“She said, ‘Look, I’m generalizing here, but a lot of his support is coming from this odd place, that he’s given a platform to the alt-right and white nationalists, ‘” Kaine told the Washington Post.
But Trump’s vice presidential running mate Mike Pence said she had disrespected voters.
Both Trump, a native New Yorker, and Clinton, who was senator from NY at the time of the attacks, have agreed to refrain from campaigning Sunday, continuing the tradition of setting aside partisan politics on the somber anniversary.
Clinton’s rhetorical stumble came as the candidates head into the final two months of the campaign, with Trump trying to make up ground before the November 8 election.
To just be grossly generalistic, you can put half of Trump supporters into what I call the ‘basket of deplorables.’ Right?
But Pence, who usually speaks without notes, couldn’t find the paper with Clinton’s exact comments.
Another highlight of the fundraiser was when Streisand performed a parody of the Stephen Sondheim song “Send in the Clowns” with lyrics about Trump. “While she is giving us hope, Trump is selling us fear”. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people, now have 11 million.
Clinton’s comments-made Friday at an LGBT for Hillary fundraiser-were swiftly condemned by Republicans, who faulted Clinton for insulting millions of Trump supporters.
Some immediately referred to it as Hillary Clinton’s “47 percent moment” – a reference to the media storm Republican Mitt Romney found himself nearly exactly four years.
During the 2008 Democratic primary, then-Senator Obama said that small-town voters “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations”.
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Trump and his team were busy all day Saturday firing back at Clinton. “She gave an entire speech about how the alt right movement is using his campaign to advance its hate movement”, Merrill wrote.
