Hillary Clinton. (Getty)
Hillary Clinton says she now regrets saying half of Donald Trump’s supporters are in a “basket of deplorables.”
According to CNN, Clinton released a statement on September 10 in which she says, “Last night I was ‘grossly generalistic,’ and that’s never a good idea. I regret saying ‘half’ — that was wrong.”
The Associated Press said Clinton also says many Trump supporters are “hard-working Americans.”
Watch the comments, which she made at a fundraiser on September 9:
Here is the full text of Clinton’s statement expressing regret:
“I won’t stop calling out bigotry and racist rhetoric in this campaign.” —Hillary
Specifically, Clinton said, among other remarks:
We are living in a volatile political environment. You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it. And, unfortunately, there are people like that and he has lifted them up.
The crowd laughed when she made the “basket of deplorables” remark, which starts at about 1:27 into the video above. NBC News said Clinton made the remark while speaking at a “LGBT gala fundraiser where Barbra Streisand performed.”
On the morning of September 10, Donald Trump made sure his supporters knew about the moment, calling it insulting:
Wow, Hillary Clinton was SO INSULTING to my supporters, millions of amazing, hard working people. I think it will cost her at the Polls!
Trump’s running mate Mike Pence also strongly criticized Clinton’s comments, saying, according to Bloomberg, that Trump supporters are “hard working Americans. Farmers. Coal miners. Teachers. Veterans. Members of our law enforcement community. Hillary, they are not a basket of anything. They are Americans and they deserve your respect.”
Pence drew an analogy to Barack Obama’s comment that some of his opponents “cling to their guns and religion,” said Bloomberg.
Trump’s son also weighed in:
Look at the #BasketOfDeplorables in Pensacola Florida last night! What a horrible statement. #CrookedHillary
CNN says that Clinton also said some Trump supporters are irredeemable and not America.
NBC says Clinton said later in the speech that in the other basket were “people who feel that government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures. They are just desperate for change … they don’t buy everything he says but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different.”