Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on CNN. CNN Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is trying to connect all of her potential GOP rivals to real-estate developer Donald Trump.

Clinton responded to the ongoing Trump controversy in a Tuesday appearance on CNN, her first national media interview since launching her campaign in April.

The Democratic front-runner said she was "very disappointed" by Trump's heated remarks about illegal immigration. And she added that the entire Republican Party should have rushed to condemn them.

"I've very disappointed in those comments. And I feel very bad and very disappointed with him and with the Republican Party for not responding immediately and saying, 'Enough. Stop it,'" she said.

Clinton was referring to Trump's controversial campaign launch in June, when he slammed the Mexican government for supposedly sending "rapists" and drug runners to the US. A number of companies have since severed ties with Trump, indicating they found his comments offensive.

Clinton sought to group together all of the Republican candidates, including Trump, because they aren't supporters of comprehensive immigration reform like she is. That included former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), who she pointed out does not support a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants living in the US.

"But they are all in the same general area on immigration," she said. "They don't want to provide a path to citizenship. They range across a spectrum of being either grudgingly welcome or hostile towards immigrants. And I'm going to talk about comprehensive immigration reform. I'm going to talk about all of the good, law-abiding, productive members of the immigrant community that I personally know."

Although most Republicans did not "immediately" slam Trump, as Clinton said, many of the GOP candidates have described his immigration remarks as inappropriate — including Bush, former New York Gov. George Pataki (R), former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida), and businesswoman Carly Fiorina.

Other contenders like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson have dismissed the controversy as political correctness run amok.