WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the 2016 presidential campaign (all times EDT):
12:00 p.m.
Donald Trump’s running mate is firing back at comments by Hillary Clinton in which she described Trump supporters as a “basket of deplorables.”
Mike Pence said Saturday at the Values Voters Summit in Washington that Clinton’s comments should be “denounced in the strongest possible terms.”
He said that Trump supporters are “not a basket of anything,” adding, they are “members of every class of this country who know that we can make America great again.”
Clinton made her comments at an LGBT fundraiser in New York late Friday, adding that Trump supporters are “The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic — you name it.”
Pence said, “the men and women who support Donald Trump’s campaign are hard-working Americans: Farms, coal miners, teachers, veterans, members of our law enforcement community.”
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11:05 a.m.
Donald Trump says he’ll be in St. Louis later Saturday to attend the funeral of Phyllis Schlafly, the conservative activist who helped defeat the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s and founded the Eagle Forum political group.
Schlafly died Monday at age 92.
Trump tweets that he’ll be in Missouri with his wife, Melania, for the funeral of “a wonderful and truly respected woman.”
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11 a.m.
Hillary Clinton has verbally banished half of Donald Trump’s backers to a “basket of deplorables,” and the Republican presidential nominee is quickly pouncing.
He says she’s smeared many Americans and will pay a heavy political price.
Clinton — who’s said she’s the candidate to unify a divided country— made the comment at an LGBT fundraiser Friday night at a New York City restaurant, with about 1,000 people in attendance.
Here’s what she said:
“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.”
Clinton then pivoted and tried to characterize the other half of Trump’s supporters, putting them in “that other basket” and saying they need understanding and empathy.