Hillary Clinton: Donald Trump's racial rhetoric 'not acceptable'

Hillary Clinton took a swipe at Donald Trump on Thursday, saying — without mentioning him by name — that his presidential launch speech was offensive to Mexicans and “emblematic” of the kind of rhetoric that cannot be tolerated in the wake of the tragic South Carolina shootings.

“We have to have a candid national conversation about race and about discrimination, prejudice, hatred,” Clinton said in an interview with KNPB’s Jon Ralston. “But unfortunately, the public discourse is sometimes hotter and more negative than it should be, which can, in my opinion, trigger people who are less than stable.”


“For example,” the former secretary of state added, “a recent entry into the Republican presidential campaign said some very inflammatory things about Mexicans. Everybody should stand up and say that’s not acceptable. You don’t talk like that on talk radio. You don’t talk like that on the kind of political campaigns.”

“You can name him,” Ralston responded, but Clinton refused to use Trump’s name.

“I think he is emblematic,” she said. “I want people to understand it’s not about him, it’s about everybody.”

“We should not accept it,” Clinton said of hateful speech in national political conversation. “Decent people need to stand up against it.”

Trump fired back at Clinton’s remarks on Friday in a post to Instagram.

“Wow, it’s pretty pathetic that Hillary Clinton just blamed me for the horrendous attack that took place in South Carolina. This is why politicians are just no good. Our country’s in trouble,” the New York real estate tycoon said.

Hillary’s comments referred to a line from Trump’s discursive Tuesday announcement speech, in which he claimed that Mexico is sending criminals to the United States.

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best,” Trump told the audience. “They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists, and some, I assume, are good people.”

Other Republican presidential candidates have not yet spoken out about Trump’s comments. Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina told a conservative radio host that Trump is “endlessly entertaining” and his campaign pitch is “tapping into the frustration of the American people with the professional political class.”

Hillary Clinton did not just condemn Trump’s speech — she also reiterated President Barack Obama’s assertion that gun policy should be included in a national discussion of how to combat mass murders.

The Democratic 2016 front-runner called the president’s speech Thursday “very moving” and agreed with his sentiment on the relevance of guns in creating tragedies.

“Let’s just cut to the chase: It’s guns,” she said, adding that state and local politicians need to join in a national effort to combat “tremendous lobbying pressure from the gun lobby.”

The interview also touched on Clinton’s earlier assertion that whether to grant President Obama fast-track authority on trade “is a process issue,” not a substantive question that requires her to take a position. She has declined to take a firm stand on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a massive 12-country trade deal that many Democrats oppose.

Clinton told Ralston that, given what she knows now, she would not vote for “fast-track” authority if she were still in the U.S. Senate without greater aid to workers.

“At this point, probably not because it’s a process vote, and I don’t want to say it’s the same as TPP,” Clinton said. “Right now, I’m focused on making sure we get trade adjustment assistance, and I certainly would not vote for it unless I were absolutely confident we would get trade adjustment assistance.”

The former secretary of state also sought to explain why she promoted the TPP while serving in the Obama administration, but refuses to take a position on it now.

“When [TPP] began to be negotiated, I said it holds out the promise to be the gold standard” of trade deals, Clinton said. “I said positive things about the process and the potential.”

“If we could get the right kind of agreement that was good for workers, good for wages, good for the environment, labor, safety, health and good for our national security, that would be great for America,” she said.

Nick Gass contributed to this report.