Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has repurposed a tweet President Barack Obama posted last election cycle to chide Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton for attacking his supporters as “deplorables.”
“RT if you agree: We need a President who is fighting for all Americans, not one who writes off nearly half the country,” Obama’s tweet from September 18, 2012 said.
Trump retweeted the nearly four year old tweet in response to Clinton’s comment at a fundraiser Friday night saying “half” his supporters fit into a “basket of deplorables.” (RELATED: Hillary Clinton: Half Of Donald Trump’s Supporters Come From ‘Basket Of Deplorables’)
“Just to be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables,” Clinton said. “They’re 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 their offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric.”
The comment has already evoked comparisons to Mitt Romney’s now infamous “47 percent” gaffe, which, incidentally, is what Obama was referencing in the Trump-retweeted tweet.
Obama, at the time running for reelection, offered the September 2012 tweet in response to then-Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s secretly recorded comments that “47 percent” of voters pay no income taxes and would never support a Romney candidacy because they are dependent on government.
Clinton has since said her comments were “wrong” but refused to back away from tying Trump to the word “deplorable.” (RELATED: Clinton Regrets Saying Half Of Trump’s Supporters Are Racist)
“Last night I was ‘grossly generalistic,’ and that’s never a good idea. I regret saying ‘half’ – that was wrong,” she said in a statement Saturday, going on to describe some of Trump’s actions as “deplorable.”
Trump, continuing on the attack, said the comments were another reason she should not be president.
“How can she be President of our country when she has such contempt and disdain for so many great Americans?” he said in a statement. “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.”