Trump demands Clinton apologize for “basket of deplorables” statement
But the Trump campaign is also capitalizing on the comments by running ads in swing states
Donald Trump is demanding that Hillary Clinton apologize for comments she made at an LGBT fundraiser where she called half of his supporters a “basket of deplorables” who allegedly hold “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic [and] Islamophobic” views, the New York Times reports.
“I was thus deeply shocked and alarmed this Friday to hear my opponent attack, slander, smear, demean these wonderful, amazing people who are supporting our campaign by the millions,” the Republican nominee said in a speech to the National Guard Association of the United States in Baltimore on Monday.
“People who want their immigration laws enforced are not racists,” said Trump. “They are patriotic Americans of all backgrounds who want their jobs and families protected. People who warn about radical Islamic terrorism are not Islamaphobes. They’re not. They are decent American citizens who want to uphold our tolerant values and keep our country safe.”
Trump also called Clinton’s comments “disqualifying” for a presidential candidate, and demanded that Clinton retract her comments in full and apologize.
“If Hillary Clinton will not retract her comments in full, I don’t see how she can credibly campaign any further,” Trump said. “Let’s be clear: These were not offhand comments from Hillary Clinton. These weren’t strained remarks, not at all. They were given also in an interview, and probably a number of interviews.”
On Saturday, a day after she initially made the comments, Clinton’s campaign released a statement expressing regret for being “grossly generalistic,” even though she had prefaced her remarks by admitting that she was overgeneralizing.
“I regret saying ‘half’ — that was wrong,” Clinton said in the statement, while also vowing to continue to call out bigotry or racist rhetoric in the campaign, the Wall Street Journal reports.
“But let’s be clear: What’s really ‘deplorable’ is that Donald Trump hired a major advocate for the so-called ‘alt-right’ movement to run his campaign and that David Duke and other white supremacists see him as a champion of their values,” she said. “It’s deplorable that Trump has built his campaign largely on prejudice and paranoia and given a national platform to hateful views and voices, including by retweeting fringe bigots with a few dozen followers and spreading their message to 11 million people.”
But even had Clinton apologized, Trump’s campaign seems determined to make hay over the comments, the Times reports. In response, the campaign is airing an ad in the states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Florida that plays Clinton’s remarks over video of Trump supporters at the Republican candidate’s rallies. While Trump accuses Clinton of trying to bully and intimidate people into not voting for him, his campaign is trying to stir up his supporters’ anger over the comments to motivate them to go to the polls come November.
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