And unfortunately, there are people like that and he has lifted them up.
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He said Trump’s supporters are hard-working Americans and include “every class of this country who know we can make America great again”.
Clinton, who has said she is the candidate to unify a divided country, made the comment at an LGBT fundraiser Friday night at a New York City restaurant, with about 1,000 people in attendance.
“They don’t buy everything he says, but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different”, Clinton said. “Those are people we have to understand and empathise with, as well”.
Trump’s campaign pounced on Clinton’s candid views.
The remarks have been harshly criticized by Republicans and Trump supporters. “They say I have the most loyal people. where I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?”
In his response, Trump said: “Isn’t it disgraceful that Hillary Clinton makes the worst mistake of the political season and instead of owning up to this grotesque attack on American voters, she tries to turn it around with a pathetic rehash of the words and insults used in her failing campaign?”
In a statement Saturday, a day after Clinton said she regards half of Trump’s supporters as a “basket of deplorables”, Reince Priebus said Clinton is showing “her outright contempt for ordinary people”. At a rally in Florida on Friday, the real estate mogul dubbed Clinton “unstable“, an apparent jab at her mental health.
The politicians on hand lined up in a row as the ceremony began, with Clinton at one end and Trump at the other.
The Republican nominee said Schlafly was “there for me when it was not at all fashionable”.
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.
Trump has routinely said that Clinton should “go to jail” for her use of a private email server, despite the FBI’s conclusion that pressing charges against the former secretary of state would be inconsistent with ordinary prosecutorial standards.
Trump’s running mate Mike Pence said Clinton had disrespected voters.
In 2011, Trump became the highest-profile member of the racist “birther” movement, questioning whether Obama was born in the United States with a public campaign to investigate the president’s origins.
Hillary Clinton has verbally banished half of Donald Trump’s backers to a “basket of deplorables”, and the Republican presidential nominee is quickly pouncing.
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Also appearing at the event were “Orange Is the New Black” star Laverne Cox, Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook, and DNC acting chair Donna Brazile.
