Hillary Clinton claimed Friday evening that roughly half of Donald Trump's supporters are sexist, racist, homophobic bigots — a heavy charge that comes amid reports the Democratic nominee planned to move away from attacking the Republican candidate.

"To just be grossly generalistic, you can put half of Trump supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables," Clinton said at a fundraiser in New York City. "Right? Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it."

The former secretary of state continued, adding, "And unfortunately, there are people like that and he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people, now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric."

"Now, some of those folks — they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America," she said.

Trump's campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, wasted no time responding to Clinton's claim that half of the GOP nominee's followers are bigots.

"One day after promising to be aspirational & uplifting, Hillary insults millions of Americans," Conway said on social media.

One day after promising to be aspirational & uplifting, Hillary insults millions of Americans. #desperate https://t.co/OrBkowI4Sd — Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) September 10, 2016



Clinton's traveling press secretary also responded Friday evening to the Democratic candidate's remarks, and claimed on social media that she didn't really mean half of Trump's supporters.

"She gave an entire speech about how the alt right movement is using his campaign to advance its hate movement," Nick Merrill said. "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," he said.

Though Clinton's comments Friday evening mark some of her sharpest of the 2016 election, this isn't the first time that she has said part of Trump's support can be written off as "deplorables."

Clinton said almost the exact same thing in a recent interview with Israel's Channel 2, which was aired Thursday.

The difference between what Clinton said in the Channel 2 interview and what she said at the fundraiser is that, on Friday, she estimated the size of Trump's base ("half") that is both "irredeemable" and "deplorable."



This also isn't the first time that Clinton has linked Trump and his campaign to racist elements.

In August, she claimed at a campaign rally in Reno, Nev., that the Trump campaign is based entirely on fear and bigotry.

"Donald Trump has built his campaign on prejudice and paranoia," she said. "He is taking hate groups mainstream, and helping a radical fringe take over the Republican Party. His disregard for the values that make our country great is profoundly dangerous."

Trump, who Clinton said has a "long history of racial discrimination," also traffics in "dark conspiracy theories" of the sort one would read in a cheap tabloid.

"He is reinforcing harmful stereotypes, and offering a dog whistle to his most hateful supporters as a disturbing preview of what kind of president he'd be," Clinton said.

Her remarks in August came after Trump declared at a campaign rally in Jackson, Miss., that she was a "bigot."

But it wasn't all harsh criticism for Trump supporters Friday evening. Clinton had some nice things to say about the other so-called "basket" of supporters.

"The other basket … that other basket of people are people who feel that the government 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," she said.

"Those are the kind of people we have to understand and empathize with as well," Clinton said.

–

This article has been updated with comment from the Clinton campaign.