On Friday night, Clinton had torn into supporters of her Republican rival, saying: “To just be grossly generalistic, you can put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the ‘basket of deplorables, ‘” condemning the basket as a woefully bigoted one.
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“Clinton earned a firestorm of criticism after she slammed Trump voters at a fundraiser late Friday in NY, saying, “To just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables”. “Right? Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it”. And unfortunately there are people like that.
“That other basket of people are people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they’re just desperate for change, ” Clinton said.
In fact, however, Clinton’s aides had invited reporters to watch her remarks at the fundraiser – something they often do not do (and Trump’s campaign nearly never does) – and she had previously used a version of the “deplorable” remark in an interview.
Trump turned to Twitter to broadcast his response to Clinton, predicting that her words would harm her standing in the election.
“Last night, I was “grossly generalistic, ‘ and that’s never a good idea”, Clinton said in a statement posted to her Facebook page”.
But she then went on to list a number of “deplorable” things about Trump. “Now, some of those folks – they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America”, said the Democratic nominee, who was the country’s top diplomat during President Barack Obama’s first term.
But when walking back the remarks, Clinton also vowed to continue “calling out bigotry and racist rhetoric in this campaign” while emphasizing that she still wanted to be seen as a candidate of unity.
This was all explained the day after Clinton’s campaign press secretary Nick Merrill insisted that “Obviously not everyone supporting Trump is part of the alt-right, but alt-right leaders are with Trump”-and that the alt-right’s “supporters appear to make up half his crowd when you observe the tone of his events”. I regret saying ‘half” – that was wrong”, she said in the statement.
But Trump’s vice presidential running mate Mike Pence said she had disrespected voters.
“Wow, Hillary Clinton was SO INSULTING to my supporters, millions of incredible, hard-working people”. Trump said in a tweet.
Republican Donald Trump appears to have carved out a wider path to the White House as a number of states including Florida and OH are no longer considered likely wins for Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, according to the latest Reuters/Ipsos States of the Nation project. At a rally in Pensacola, Florida, on Friday, he said Clinton is “so protected” that “she could walk into this arena right now and shoot somebody with 20,000 people watching, right smack in the middle of the heart”.
The comments in question came as Clinton introduced Barbra Streisand during Friday night’s fundraiser with gay and lesbian supporters in NY. So when she makes a mistake – particularly a highly public one, as she did Friday night – it’s magnified. The GOP nominee refused to condemn campaign surrogate and New Hampshire State Rep. Al Baldasaro for arguing that Clinton should be shot for treason.
In his remarks, recorded at a private fund-raiser, Romney asserted that 47 percent of voters “will vote for the president no matter what” because they are “dependent upon government, ” “believe that they are victims, ” and “pay no income tax”. Clinton, by contrast, hasn’t been actively trying to get votes from Americans who harbor strong racial animosities.
With this apology, it might seem like she’s saying that far fewer of them are such “deplorables”.
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Speaking at a LGBT fundraiser in New York, Clinton said Trump had given voice to hateful rhetoric through his behavior as a candidate for the White House in the November 8 election. “I think it will cost her at the polls!” Regardless, whatever the precise percentage, Clinton has made it a recurring theme in her campaign to bash The Donald’s hate-spewing fanboys, particularly those of the alt-right variety.
