Trump Campaign Blasts Hillary Clinton Over ‘Basket of Deplorables’ Remark
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has broken the genteel calm of this presidential campaign by saying something controversial, and the campaign of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is taking Hillary to task for this breach of decorum. At a fundraiser Friday night, Secretary Clinton told the crowd that half of Trump’s supporters are part of a “basket of deplorables” that includes “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic” individuals, like those that Trump has repeatedly retweeted.
The Trump campaign immediately jumped on the remarks, as with this tweet from campaign manager Kellyanne Conway:
Hillary, placing people in “baskets”, slandering them but admitting after 8 yrs, they are “desperate for change.” https://t.co/OrBkowI4Sd
— Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) September 10, 2016
Conway also took aim at Hillary campaign spokesman Nick Merrill’s attempt to provide fuller context to what Hillary said, and to demand an apology:
(2/3) Obviously not everyone supporting Trump is part of the alt right, but alt right leaders are with Trump.
— Nick Merrill (@NickMerrill) September 10, 2016
(2/3) Obviously not everyone supporting Trump is part of the alt right, but alt right leaders are with Trump.
— Nick Merrill (@NickMerrill) September 10, 2016
(3/3) And their supporters appear to make up half his crowd when you observe the tone of his events.
— Nick Merrill (@NickMerrill) September 10, 2016
Nick, it's simply untrue. Come to an event; talk to real people who aren't donors. Or better: have Hillary apologize https://t.co/DdBFhWgav5
— Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) September 10, 2016
The candidate himself got into the act Saturday morning, even deploying the ALL CAPS key for emphasis:
Wow, Hillary Clinton was SO INSULTING to my supporters, millions of amazing, hard working people. I think it will cost her at the Polls!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 10, 2016
Trump running mate and Indiana Governor Mike Pence got in on the act at the Values Voter Summit:3
The Trump campaign also released a statement casting Hillary’s remarks as an attack on everyday Americans (via email):
Just when Hillary Clinton said she was going to start running a positive campaign, she ripped off her mask and revealed her true contempt for everyday Americans. Tonight’s comments were more than another example of Clinton lying to the country about her emails, jeopardizing our national security, or even calling citizens ‘super-predators’ – this was Clinton, as a defender of Washington’s rigged system – telling the American public that she could care less about them.
And what’s truly deplorable isn’t just that Hillary Clinton made an inexcusable mistake in front of wealthy donors and reporters happened to be around to catch it, it’s that Clinton revealed just how little she thinks of the hard-working men and women of America.
Clinton’s full remarks, however, include the assertion that the other half of Trump’s supporters are “people who feel that the 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, and they’re just desperate for change.”
