Hillary apologizes for calling Trump supporters ‘basket of deplorables’

Hillary Clinton expressed “regret” Saturday for saying half of Republican presidential rival Donald Trump’s supporters could be put into a “basket of deplorables.”

Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, said in her apology that she was “grossly generalistic” in criticizing Trump supporters, using that same phrase Friday night when attacking them at a New York fundraiser.

“That’s never a good idea,” she also said Saturday.

“Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it,” Clinton said Friday. “There are people like that, and (Trump) has lifted them up.”

Clinton, in her apology, also said: “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.”

Her comments have dominated the weekend news cycle and are being compared to those 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney made at a private fundraiser about “47 percent of people voting for (President Obama) no matter what.”

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