A West Virginia voter on Monday emotionally confronted Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton over her past remarks about shrinking the coal industry.
“This is my family,” the man told Clinton during a roundtable in Williamson, W.Va., as he handed her a photograph. “My hope is in God, and that’s my future. I want my family to know that they have a future in this state because it is a great state. I’ve lived my entire life here.
{mosads}“I just want you to know: How can you say you’re going to put a lot of coal miners out of jobs and then come in here and tell us you’re going to be our friend? Those people out there don’t see you as a friend.”
Clinton angered the coal industry in March by talking about putting the industry out of business.
“I’m the only candidate which has a policy about how to bring economic opportunity — using clean, renewable energy as the key — into coal country,” she said on March 14. “We’re going to put a lot of companies and coal miners out of business. We’re going to make it clear that we don’t want to forget those people.”
Clinton on Monday said she now regrets how she described her plan at the time.
“It was a misstatement,” she said. “What I was saying is that the way things are going now, we will continue losing jobs. That seems to be supported by the facts. I didn’t mean to say that we will do it. I meant to say that is what will happen unless we take action to try and prevent it.
“I do feel a little bit sad and sorry that I gave people the excuse to be so sad or sorry, because that is not what I intended at all. I’m going to do whatever I can to help, no matter what happens politically.”
CNN on Monday identified the man as Bo Copley, a former coal company employee and an uncommitted registered Republican. The report added that he was not won over by Clinton’s remarks.