Speaking in Baltimore on Monday, Trump suggests Clinton should retract her ‘basket of deplorables’ comment or withdraw from the race

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Donald Trump on Monday said Hillary Clinton’s remark that some of his supporters belonged in a “basket of deplorables” showed that the Democratic nominee was elitist.

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“She divides people into baskets as though they were objects, not human beings,” Trump said in a speech in Baltimore to the National Guard Association of the United States. The Republican nominee insisted that Clinton should withdraw from the presidential race if she did not “retract her comments in full”.

At a New York fundraising event on Friday night, Clinton said: “You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right?

“The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic – you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.

“Some of those folks, they are irredeemable.”

The comments sparked immediate controversy, and Clinton subsequently backed away, issuing a statement in which she expressed regret for being “grossly generalistic” in so labeling half of Trump’s supporters.

But Clinton stood by her characterization of many Trump supporters, saying the Republican nominee had “built his campaign largely on prejudice and paranoia and given a national platform to hateful views and voices”.

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She also argued: “What’s really ‘deplorable’ is that Donald Trump hired a major advocate for the so-called ‘alt-right’ movement to run his campaign [Breitbart News chief Steve Bannon] and that [former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard] David Duke and other white supremacists see him as a champion of their values.”

Although Clinton’s remarks seemed to be focused on the fringes of Trump’s support, which include elements of the so-called alt right, the Republican nominee seemed on Monday to apply them to all of his supporters, if not all Americans.

Clinton, he said, was someone who has “contempt for the people who thanklessly follow the rules, pay their taxes, and scratch out a living for their families”. She was, he said, engaged in a “campaign of conspiracy and contempt”.

The result, in Trump’s view, was that “if Hillary Clinton will not retract her comments in full, then I don’t see how she can credibly campaign”.

The Trump campaign seems to see significant political benefits in using the “basket of deplorables” remarks as a theme. It has already made a television commercial featuring the remark that is set to air in swing states.

In his speech in Maryland – a state that has not voted Republican since 1988 and where Clinton leads in the RealClearPolitics poll average by 33 points (60% to 27%) – Trump framed the remark as a continuation of his attacks on Clinton as “an insider” tied to special interests who “cannot bring change”.

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However, with Trump seen to be “biased against women and minorities” by a majority of voters, according to a recent poll, it is unlikely such attacks will force Clinton to back away from her remarks about Trump’s “deplorables”.

Trump made no mention of controversy over Clinton’s health, a day after the former secretary of state had to leave a ceremony commemorating September 11 and was filmed swaying and being supported as she climbed into a campaign vehicle.

The Clinton campaign subsequently released a statement saying the candidate was suffering from pneumonia, leading to the cancellation of a scheduled fundraising trip to California.

In a Monday morning interview with Fox News, Trump said: “I hope she gets well and gets back on the trail and we’ll be seeing her at the debate.”