Hillary Clinton on Saturday walked back comments she made about supporters of Donald Trump at an event in New York City. She refuses to meet with law enforcement in order to placate her extremist, left wing supporters.
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While Clinton is taking heat for her comment, Trump’s brand is controversy. Perhaps it was nothing more than a “glaring factual error gaffe”, though, it’s worth noting that while Clinton subsequently expressed “regret” for saying “half”, she did not explicitly retract the substance of the claim itself.
The Reuters/Ipsos States of the Nation project released on Saturday shows Trump has caught up to Clinton’s level of support in several states, including Florida and Ohio. When Republican Mitt Romney infamously declared at a secretly filmed fundraiser in 2012 that he wasn’t concerned about “47 percent” of voters he considered to be dependent on government services who wouldn’t vote for him, his remark was relentlessly highlighted by Democrats as an insult to working-class voters.
Clinton has not let the media into many private fundraisers, but press was allowed in to hear her remarks Friday.
Some of those were irredeemable, she said, but they did not represent America.
But some Twitter users agreed with Clinton, referencing remarks by Trump that have been called racist, such as when he described some Mexican immigrants drug dealers and rapists.
It didn’t take much longer than a few minutes for the Trump campaign and its allies to seize on Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” quip and spin it as her latest presidential undoing.
“Tonight’s comments were more than another example of Clinton lying to the country about her e-mails, jeopardising our national security, or even calling citizens “super-predators” – this was Clinton, as a defender of Washington’s rigged system, telling the American public that she could care less about them”, he said.
Clinton has made similar comments in the past.
Clinton, 68, also told the fundraiser crowd that other Trump supporters feel let down by the government and the economy, and are “desperate for change”.
“While Hillary said terrible things about my supporters, and while many of her supporters will never vote for me, I still respect them all!”
Twitter user Basketeer Vendetta, under the account Vendetta92429, tweeted a photo of Trump supporters wearing campaign T-shirts and hats, adding: “Proud to be part of the #BasketOfDeplorables with my fellow Americans”.
With many polls showing most undecided voters having very unfavorable views of Trump and Clinton, the chances are greater they may vote for third-party presidential candidates such as Green Party hopeful Jill Stein, independent Evan McMullin or Libertarian Gary Johnson – or not vote at all.
It could prove a stumble for a seasoned – and polarizing – politician who wants to lead a country that includes many who have embraced Trump’s exhortations to “lock her up”.
Liberal outlet Think Progress said Clinton was on the right track, because Donald Trump is a racist. “And their supporters appear to make up half his crowd, when you observe the tone of his events”.
She continued, “They won’t wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they’re in a dead end”.
“The comments need to be dissected and put into context”, said Symone Sanders, a Democratic strategist and former spokeswoman for Clinton’s primary opponent, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. That’s true and we shouldn’t be shy about pointing that out.
The comment was reminiscent of Trump’s January description of the loyalty of his supporters.
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Speaking at an evening fundraiser in NY, the former USA secretary of state said Trump had given voice to hateful rhetoric from such individuals through his behaviour as a candidate for the White House.
