“It doesn’t really even matter where it comes from”.
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Her remarks Friday night at a fundraising event in NY drew sharp criticism from the Republican nominee and his running mate, Mike Pence, who said it revealed her disdain for the American people.
“You can put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables”, Clinton said. “The fact that the only criticism they could have for Hillary Clinton is that she didn’t smile enough at a very serious forum on our veterans, on our national security and on the job of commander in chief just tells you everything you need to know”, Mook said.
Trump’s campaign quickly pounced on the remarks.
Even some Democrats saw it as a mistake, given Trump commands the support of some 50 million voters.
And perceptions of Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state, which came up frequently in Wednesday night’s forum, has shifted over the previous year and a half from an issue that voters deemed mostly irrelevant to her character or ability to serve as president to one which nearly two-thirds judge as an indicator of her fitness for the job.
But Lauer took heat from political journalists for not challenging Trump when he claimed that he opposed the war in Iraq from the beginning, something that reporters have repeatedly pointed out conflicts with interviews that Trump gave at the time in which he expressed support.
While Clinton is taking heat for her comment, Trump’s brand is controversy.
“She could walk into this arena right now and shoot somebody with 20,000 people watching, right smack in the middle of the heart, and she wouldn’t be prosecuted, OK?” “They’re ill-informed, he might have people whispering in his ears, ‘say this, maybe that will be popular with some people.’ He has no grounding, he has no feeling”. “It’s like incredible”, he said.
But Clinton might’ve crossed an important line here: She’s not just calling out her opponent anymore.
“And he has lifted them up”, Clinton continued.
Still, Clinton indicated later in the day that she does not want the final weeks to be exclusively focused on Trump, unveiling plans for a series of policy speeches aimed at promoting a positive message.
“Certainly, in that system, he’s been a leader, far more than our president has been a leader”, Trump said. She has made similar comments recently, including on an Israeli television station.
“Let me say this about Vladimir Putin: Vladimir Putin is an aggressor that does not share our interests”, he said.
“I have been somewhat heartened by the number of articles recently pointed out the quite disparate treatment of Trump and his campaign compared to ours”, Clinton said.
She said that Friday night at a fundraiser in NY.
The event is open to the public, but her website says it has reached capacity.
Comments about voters – especially at private fundraisers – have tripped up presidential hopefuls in the past.
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Critically, much of the cash raised by Trump last month will eventually head to his campaign’s own coffers, giving him greater discretion over how Republican efforts are waged in the homestretch of the general election.
