The Washington Times: Hillary Clinton attempted Saturday to walk back her remark that half of Donald Trump’s supporters are sexist, racist and homophobic and “irredeemable,” saying she regretted saying “half.”
“Last night I was ‘grossly generalistic,’ and that’s never a good idea. I regret saying ‘half’ — that was wrong,” Mrs. Clinton said in a statement.
Her remarks Friday night at a fundraising event in New York drew sharp criticism from the Republican nominee and his running mate, Mike Pence, who said it revealed her disdain for the American people.
Still, Mrs. Clinton in the statement said that she stood by her criticism that the Republican nominee appealed to the worst of America. She said he built his campaign on “prejudice and paranoia.”
“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,” said Mrs. Clinton.
“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,” she said.
