Clinton Says She Regrets Saying 'Half' of Trump's Supporters Were 'Deplorables'

Hillary for America/Flickr(NEW YORK) — Hillary Clinton said Saturday that it was “wrong” to say that half of Donald Trump’s supporters were “deplorables” and “irredeemable.”

Clinton made the comment Friday night at the LGBT For Hillary Gala, at which Barbra Streisand and Rufus Wainwright performed.

“To just be grossly generalistic, you can put half of Trump supporters into what I call ‘the basket of deplorables.’ Right?” the Democratic presidential nominee told donors at the event. “Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it. 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.”

She added: “Now some of those folks, they are irredeemable. But they are not America.”

Clinton said Trump’s other supporters “are people who feel the government has let them down, the economy 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.”

On Saturday, she said in part: “Last night I was ‘grossly generalistic,’ and that’s never a good idea. I regret saying ‘half’ — that was wrong. 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.”

Trump called Clinton’s statement “disgraceful,” and a “grotesque attack on American voters.”

“For the first time in a long while, her true feelings came out, showing bigotry and hatred for millions of Americans,” he said in a statement released Saturday afternoon. “How can she be President of our country when she has such contempt and disdain for so many great Americans? Hillary Clinton should be ashamed of herself, and this proves beyond a doubt that she is unfit and incapable to serve as President of the United States. I will be President for all of the people, and together we will Make America Great Again.”

Copyright © 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.

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