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Hillary Clinton walks back comments on Trump supporters after social media backlash

She said it was a mistake to be 'grossly generalistic.'

 

Cynthia McKelvey

Tech

Posted on Sep 10, 2016   Updated on May 26, 2021, 1:19 am CDT

Hillary Clinton is walking back a comment she made about Trump supporters.

At an LBGT fundraising event on Friday, Clinton discussed how she feared Trump’s proposed Supreme Court Justices “will overturn marriage equality.” But a few minutes later, she made a quote that caused backlash among Trump supporters:

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, Islamaphobic—you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.


#BasketofDeplorables started trending on Twitter shortly after the Trump campaign caught wind of the comments and issued a statement decrying them.

https://twitter.com/OpinionMKE/status/774702428251971584

Prominent Republicans disavowed Clinton’s language while others, including Trump advisor Roger Stone, embraced it.

According to CNN, Clinton made a statement on Saturday expressing regret at calling “half” of Trump’s supporters deplorable.

“Many of Trump’s supporters are hard-working Americans who just don’t feel like the economy or our political system are working for them,” she said. But she won’t stop bringing attention to  “calling out bigotry and racist rhetoric in this campaign.”

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*First Published: Sep 10, 2016, 5:57 pm CDT