Clinton says half of Trump supporters fall into ‘basket of deplorables’

Hillary Clinton divided Donald Trump supporters into two categories at a fundraiser Friday night and said one group falls into a “basket of deplorables.” 

{mosads}Clinton spoke at an LGBT-focused fundraiser for her campaign in New York hosted by Barbara Streisand and evaluated the people who have propelled Trump’s unorthodox campaign, according to reporters on the scene. 

“You know, just to be grossly generalist, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables,” Clinton said, according to BuzzFeed News. “The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic — you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.”

Clinton said the other half are people struggling who have found hope in Trump’s message. 

“That other basket of people are people who feel that 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 a change,” she said. “They don’t buy everything he says, but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won’t wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they’re in a dead end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.”

In a recent speech Clinton tried to tie her GOP rival in with the so-called alt-right movement, a loose fringe group that exists largely online and often appeals to anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic and white nationalist individuals. 

On Friday Clinton reportedly told the crowd: “If you know anybody who’s even thinking of voting for Trump, stage an intervention.”