By Dan Merica, CNN
Hillary Clinton told an audience of donors Friday night that half of Donald Trump’s supporters fall into “the basket of deplorables,” meaning people who are racist, sexist, homophobic or xenophobic.
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.
“To just be grossly generalistic, you can put half of Trump supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables,” Clinton said.
“Right? Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it.”
She added, “And unfortunately, there are people like that and he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people, now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric.”
Clinton went on to say that some of these people were “irredeemable” and “not America.”
Trump and his campaign quickly pounced on the remarks.
“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 tweeted Saturday morning.
“One day after promising to be aspirational & uplifting, Hillary insults millions of Americans. #desperate,” campaign manager Kellyanne Conway tweeted.
She later added, “Hillary, placing people in ‘baskets,’ slandering them but admitting after 8 yrs, they are “desperate for change.”
And Jason Miller, a Trump spokesman, said in a statement that Clinton “ripped off her mask and revealed her true contempt for everyday Americans.”
Clinton acknowledges desire for change
Shifting to the other half of Trump supporters, Clinton said many of those people feel like the government doesn’t care about them and who just want change in any form.
“That other basket of people are 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.
Doesn’t really even matter where it comes from.”
She continued, “They won’t wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they’re in a dead end. Those are people who we have to understand and empathize with as well.”
Clinton made the comments before introducing Barbra Streisand at an LGBT fundraiser in downtown New York.
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. While she has headlined more than 330 fundraisers as a candidate, her campaign has kept most of these events closed from reporters.
‘Prejudice and paranoia’
Clinton’s comments amount to startlingly blunt talk for a candidate that is usually measured in her assessment of the Republican nominee.
Although Clinton has accused Trump of racism before, she has never explicitly called him a racist. Last month, she delivered a major speech in which she accused Trump of aligning himself with far-right extremists and saying he “built his campaign on prejudice and paranoia.”
“He’s taking hate groups mainstream and helping a radical fringe take over the Republican Party,” Clinton said in Reno, Nevada.
“His disregard for the values that make our country great is profoundly dangerous.”
Nick Merrill, a spokesman for Clinton’s campaign, cited the speech in attempting to clarify the Democratic nominee’s comments Friday night.
“Obviously not everyone supporting Trump is part of the alt right, but alt right leaders are with Trump,” Merrill tweeted, adding,
“And their supporters appear to make up half his crowd when you observe the tone of his events.”
On Thursday, Clinton slammed Trump for kicking off his political career by questioning whether President Barack Obama was actually born in the United States.
“We are facing a candidate with a long history of racial discrimination in his business, who traffics in toxic conspiracy theories like the lie that President Obama is not a true American,” Clinton said. “If he doesn’t respect all Americans, how can he serve all Americans?”
Clinton also echoed her campaign on Friday when she urged her supporters — some of whom paid $50,000 to attend the fundraiser with Streisand — to not get complacent.
“We can’t take anyone or any place for granted and therefore I am asking you to volunteer for a phone bank or a canvass. At the very least, if you know anybody who’s even thinking of voting for Trump, stage an intervention,” Clinton said. “That may be one conversion therapy I endorse. Just remember: friends don’t let friends vote for Trump.”
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