But a Clinton campaign spokesman explained that Clinton was referring to the members and leaders of the far-right ideology who support Trump-and it’s not the first time she’s called them out.
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“Trump, 70, struck back on Saturday, posting on Twitter: “Wow, Hillary Clinton was SO INSULTING to my supporters, millions of fantastic, hard working people”.
In her statement, Ms. Clinton said of Mr. Trump: “it’s deplorable that he’s attacked a federal judge for his ‘Mexican heritage, ‘ bullied a Gold Star family due to their Muslim faith, and promoted the lie that our first black president is not a true American”.
But Jamal Simmons, a Democratic consultant, said the remarks probably would not wrest voters from Clinton.
Polls released earlier this week suggest Mr Trump is gaining on Mrs Clinton, and the rivals are neck and neck in the key battleground states of OH and Florida.
While Ms. Clinton is taking heat for her comment, Mr. Trump’s brand is controversy. She said he built his campaign on “prejudice and paranoia”.
But Clinton had no trouble directly calling out some of Trump’s supporters on Friday.
The other half of Trump supporters, she said, fall into the category of alienated by economic instability and government dysfunction and are desperate for change, after eight years under the presidency of Democrat Barack Obama.
“If I were to be grossly generalistic, I would say you can take Trump supporters and put them in two big baskets”, Clinton said.
According to average ticket prices and attendance figures provided by the campaign, Clinton raised around $6 million at the fundraiser, only the sixth she has opened to press. “Now, some of those folks – they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America”.
“Wow, Hillary Clinton was SO INSULTING to my supporters, millions of unbelievable, hard-working people”.
“It’s not a serious presidential campaign”, Clinton said of the GOP nominee Friday in New York City.
They were, she told the LGBT event, “racist, sexist, xenophobic, Islamophobic – you name it”. “I regret saying “half” – that was wrong”, she said in the statement. She is certainly unlikely to peel off any of Donald Trump’s supporters by calling some of them racists or homophobes, but they have stuck by their man through thick and thin. He then questioned her mental health, saying, “Personally, I think she’s an unstable person” – an increasingly recurring theme in the Trump campaign that was picked up by Texas lawmaker Louie Gohmert who kept repeating that she was “mentally impaired” even while saying one should not be making fun of the handicapped.
Hillary Clinton expressed “regret” for a comment made Friday night in which she said “half of Trump supporters” belong in a “basket of deplorables” – but did not apologize for the larger point she was making.
Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill noted a previous speech in which she accused NY businessman Trump of embracing a brand of USA political conservatism associated with white nationalism and nativism known as the “alt right” movement.
Donald Trump has arrived at the funeral of conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly.
But Democratic strategist Jim Manley, who supports Clinton, pointed out that Romney was talking about all voters, and Clinton was specifically describing Trump supporters.
As liberal writer Greg Sargent wrote in the Washington Post, “People have all kinds of reasons for supporting their candidate – party loyalty; reflexive negative partisanship; genuine distaste with the alternatives; meaningful, legitimate support for certain aspects of the candidate’s agenda, and not others; and so forth”.
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Trump concluded his brief remarks speaking to Schlafly, saying, “we will never, ever let you down”.
