Trump campaign officials, however, decided not to change plans to keep the Republican’s surrogates off of Sunday morning news talk shows out of respect for the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
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His Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, is also attending.
Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill did not back away from the comment, reviving Clinton’s charge that Trump’s campaign has become a vessel for the alternative right, members of which frequently resort to ad hominem attacks based on race, gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation.
United States presidential candidate Hillary Clinton says she regrets describing half the supporters of her Republican rival, Donald Trump, as belonging in a “basket of deplorables”.
In a July speech in Springfield, Illinois, Clinton said the Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln has been transformed into “the party of Trump”, and she called it “not just a huge loss for our democracy – it is a threat to it” because her rival’s campaign “adds up to an ugly, unsafe message to America”.
Nevertheless, in his statement Saturday, Trump accused Clinton of “showing bigotry and hatred for millions of Americans”.
She vowed: “I won’t stop calling out bigotry and racist rhetoric in this campaign”. The New York Times reported in August that 4% of Americans voted for Trump in the presidential primaries, so Clinton was really only insulting 2% of the population, at most.
Trump spoke at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis Saturday, where he said that Schlafly is looking down on those gathered, telling them to “keep up the fight”.
The Republican nominee said Schlafly was “there for me when it was not at all fashionable”.
Trump concluded his brief remarks speaking to Schlafly, saying, “we will never, ever let you down”.
Trump is expected to speak at the Catholic service for Schlafly, who died Monday at the age of 92.
“Hillary, they are not a basket of anything”.
“Last night I was ‘grossly generalistic, ‘ and that’s never a good idea”.
Instead she focuses specifically on the “alt-right” (white supremacists with memes), David Duke, and Trump’s entire campaign being based on anti-immigrant, Islamaphobic rhetoric.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. On Saturday, she issued a statement that began with an expression of regret but ended with an excoriation of proposals, remarks and actions by Trump that Clinton said indicated a campaign built “largely on prejudice and paranoia”.
Many of Clinton’s fundraisers have been closed to the media, but not the one on Friday night.
While Clinton is taking heat for her comment, Trump’s brand is controversy.
“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 a change”, she said.
Clinton, speaking to donors in NY, said: “To just be grossly generalistic, you can put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the ‘basket of deplorables, ‘” Clinton said.
Trump tweets that he’ll be in Missouri with his wife, Melania, for the funeral of “a wonderful and truly respected woman”.
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Clinton’s remark quickly became the top trending topic on Twitter, with the hashtag #BasketofDeplorables drawing angry comments from Trump supporters, but also sarcastic jabs at them, as well. Supporters paid from $1,200 to more than $250,000 to attend.
