Clinton slams Trump supporters as ‘basket of deplorables’

“I regret saying “half” – that was wrong”, Clinton said in a statement, less than 24 hours after she made the comments at a fundraiser in NY.

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”.

Speaking at a fundraiser on Friday night in New York, Clinton said Trump had given voice to hateful rhetoric through his behavior as a candidate for the White House in the November 8 election.

“I don’t know what the exact percentage is, but there’s no doubt Donald Trump is drawing out the worst impulses of his supporters ranging from racism to the outrageous chants of ‘lock her up, ‘” said Jim Manley, a Democratic strategist. They are, Pence said, “hard-working Americans: Farms, coal miners, teachers, veterans, members of our law enforcement community”.

Although Clinton has accused Trump of racism before, she has never explicitly called him a racist.

While Clinton is taking heat for her comment, Trump’s brand is controversy.

“She is the corrupt establishment”, Trump said.

An FBI investigation found that she sent unsecured emails with classified material through the server, but ultimately recommended that she not be prosecuted.

Trump, of course, responded on Twitter.

Clinton added that Trump’s other supporters are people who feel they have been let down by the government and are desperate for change. “It’s like incredible”, he said.

The difference between what Clinton said in the Channel 2 interview and what she said at the fundraiser is that, on Friday, she estimated the size of Trump’s base (“half”) that is both “irredeemable” and “deplorable”.

Clinton campaign spokesman Nick Merrill took to Twitter to clean up his boss’ remarks, saying she was only referring to attendees at his rallies. “And [Trump] has lifted them up”.

“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. Tweetmaster Trump tweeted. But Clinton aides pointed out that she only deplored Trump for giving voice to the “offensive, hateful mean-spirited rhetoric” of the toxic half who were irredeemable.

A Reuters poll from July that surveyed more than 16,000 Americans found that, statistically, Trump supporters are in fact more likely to harbor racist attitudes.

In an effort to explain the support behind Trump, Clinton went on to describe the rest of Trump supporters as people who are looking for change in any form because of economic anxiety and urged her supporters to empathize with them. “They don’t buy everything he says, but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different”. The alt-right is a racist, anti-semitic white power group. “And their supporters appear to make up half his crowd, when you observe the tone of his events”.

But the moment recalled comments about voters _ also at private fundraisers – that have tripped up presidential nominees in the past.

Romney was recorded on video saying at a fundraiser that 47% of Americans would automatically vote for President Obama because they were dependent upon government and paid no taxes, and that his job was not to worry about them.

During the 2008 Democratic primary, then-Sen. Where it will all end no one knows, but this much is certain: this election campaign is sundering America more than 9/11 – whose sombre 15th anniversary the country will mark on Sunday.

Still, as the presidential race has tightened over the last few weeks, Trump will certainly be looking to exploit Clinton’s remarks.