US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has said she regretted saying “half” of Republican rival Donald Trump’s supporters belonged in a “basket of deplorables”, but made no apologies for calling out “prejudice and paranoia” among Trump’s campaign and supporters.
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Clinton wants to end that practice.
“Wow, Hillary Clinton was SO INSULTING to my supporters, millions of awesome, hard-working people”.
The remarks sent the Trump camp into full attack mode, with campaign spokesman Jason Miller quickly issuing a statement saying Clinton’s comments are what’s deplorable.
CNN political analyst and New York Times correspondent Maggie Haberman appeared as a panelist on Friday’s “New Day”, where she stated that Hillary Clinton supporters started the “birther” movement- conspiracy theories positing that President Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States and thus isn’t legally eligible to be president.
On Friday, Clinton, 68, was speaking at an LGBT gala fundraiser when she called numerous GOP candidate’s supporters “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it”.
“He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people, now have 11 million”, she continued, referencing Trump’s campaign hire of Breitbart News’ Steve Bannon.
Some of those were irredeemable, she said, but they did not represent America.
“For the first time in a long while, her true feelings came out, showing bigotry and hatred for millions of Americans”, Trump said Saturday in a statement rejecting her effort to walk back her remarks.
Trump is calling Clinton’s comments a “grotesque attack” and questioning how she can be president when “she has such contempt and disdain for so many great Americans”.
They “don’t buy everything he says, but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. And the campaign has made clear that they will continue to call out the bigotry and racist values that Donald Trump has championed in this campaign”.
Trump’s running mate, Indiana Governor Mike Pence, lambasted Clinton in a speech at a gathering of conservative voters, and campaign officials instructed surrogates to highlight Clinton’s remarks in their public appearances.
“Can you imagine if she did anything like that?” one aide said after Trump mocked a reporter’s physical disability by mimicking him at an event.
Others compared the remark to 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s infamous “47 percent” comment.
Many of Mrs Clinton’s fundraisers have been closed to the media, but not the one on Friday night. The former MA governor was widely criticized for giving the impression that he was writing off half the country due to their economic status. In light of the outrage, Clinton apologized: “I regret saying ‘half.’ That was wrong”. “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”.
“To just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Doesn’t really even matter where it comes from”. “Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well”. Over the past few weeks, Clinton’s lead in the national polls has slipped considerably. The event drew a sold-out crowd of 1000, her campaign said.
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“They are Americans, and they deserve your respect”, he tweeted.
