Clinton regrets calling ‘half’ of Trump backers ‘deplorable’

WASHINGTON - Agence France-Presse

AFP photo

Hillary Clinton said Sept. 10 she regretted saying that half of Donald Trump’s supporters belong in a “basket of deplorables” - a remark the billionaire Republican slammed as her “worst mistake of the political season.”

The Democratic presidential candidate came under fire for remarks made at a New York fundraiser late on Sept. 9 - remarks that unleashed a wave of derision and mockery on social media.

“To be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables,” Clinton told a crowd at the “LGBT for Hillary” gala.

“The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic - you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.”

She added that those people are “irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America.”

“Basket of Deplorables” quickly became a trending hashtag on Twitter, with users venting their fury at the former secretary of state.

There was even a mock account called “Hillary’s Basket,” with the handle @TheDeplorables, deriding the former first lady and U.S. senator.

Trump, 70, fired back by calling her comments “INSULTING” on Twitter, then issuing an angry statement.
“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?” Trump wrote.

“For the first time in a long while, her true feelings came out, showing bigotry and hatred for millions of Americans,” he added in a statement, calling Clinton “unfit” to be president.

He later compared Clinton’s statement to Republican Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign gaffe, when he said that 47 percent of the people would vote for Barack Obama’s re-election because they are “dependent upon government,” and “believe that they are victims.” 

“Hillary Clinton just had her 47% moment,” Trump tweeted. “What a terrible thing she said about so many great Americans!”