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Hillary Clinton: Half of Trump Supporters Belong in 'Basket of Deplorables'

Hillary Clinton said half of Trump's supporters were “desperate for change” but the other half belonged in a “basket of deplorables.”
Image: Hillary Clinton says many of Trump's supporters are 'irredeemable'
Hillary Clinton says many of Trump's supporters are 'irredeemable'Andrew Harnik / AP

Hillary Clinton urged supporters late Friday not to be complacent about Donald Trump’s chances of winning the election, saying half of his backers were “desperate for change” but the other half belonged in a “basket of deplorables.”

Appearing at an LGBT gala fundraiser where Barbra Streisand performed, Clinton said many of the GOP candidate’s voters were “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it.”

Her comments drew an immediate reaction from Trump’s campaign, which said Clinton “revealed just how little she thinks of the hard-working men and women of America.”

Image: Hillary Clinton, Laverne Cox
Hillary Clinton was welcomed to the stage by Laverne Cox at an LGBT fundraiser at the Cipriani Club in New York Friday.Andrew Harnik / AP

Trump earlier told a crowd in Florida that Clinton could "shoot somebody" and not be prosecuted —an attack that echoed a boast the businessman once made about himself.

At the LGBT event in New York, Clinton urged the crowd to volunteer for her campaign, saying: “If you know anybody who’s even thinking of voting for Trump, stage an intervention.”

She joked: “That may be one conversion therapy I endorse. Just remember: friends don’t let friends vote for Trump.”

Addressing the issue of Trump’s popularity, Clinton said: “To just be grossly generalistic, you can put half of Trump supporters into what I call the ‘basket of deplorables.’ Right? Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it.

“And unfortunately, there are people like that and he has lifted them up … he tweets and retweets offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric.”

She continued: “Now some of those folks, they are irredeemable, but they are not America but the other basket … 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 … they don’t buy everything he says but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different.

Image: Hillary Clinton says many of Trump's supporters are 'irredeemable'
Hillary Clinton says many of Trump's supporters are 'irredeemable'Andrew Harnik / AP

“There are only 60 days left to make our case and don’t get complacent. Don’t see the latest outrageous, offensive, inappropriate comment and think ‘well, he’s done this time,’” she said.

Trump responded on Twitter on Saturday morning, saying that Clinton was "SO INSULTING to my supporters, millions of amazing, hard working people. I think it will cost her at the Polls!"

Trump’s running mate also critiqued Clinton’s comments. “The men and women who support Donald Trump's campaign are hard-working Americans: Farms, coal miners, teachers, veterans, members of our law enforcement community … they are not a basket of anything,” said Mike Pence while speaking at the Values Voters Summit in Washington.

Pence added that Clinton’s remarks should be “denounced in the strongest possible terms."

Trump’s senior communications adviser, Jason Miller, said earlier that Clinton had “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’,” he said in a statement. “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.”

However, Clinton’s campaign spokesman defended her comments, saying on Twitter: “Obviously not everyone supporting Trump is part of the alt right, but alt right leaders are with Trump. And their supporters appear to make up half his crowd when you observe the tone of his events.”