Presidential races

Clinton hits back: Trump ‘peddling bigotry and prejudice and paranoia’

Hillary Clinton dismissed Donald Trump’s recent attempt to appeal to minority voters, accusing him of “taking a hate movement mainstream.”

Clinton was asked during an interview on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” about the GOP nominee calling her a “bigot” during a speech earlier Wednesday night in Mississippi.
 
{mosads}”Donald Trump has shown us who he is. And we ought to believe him,” she said, invoking civil rights activist Maya Angelou’s idea that someone shows you who they truly are the first time around.
 
“He is taking a hate movement mainstream,” she continued. “He’s brought it into his campaign. He is bringing it to our communities and our country.”
 
Clinton launched into an extended riff on Trump, previewing her speech Thursday in Reno, Nev., where she is expected to target Trump on race and the so-called alt-right movement.
 
“Someone who has questioned the citizenship of the first African-American president, who has courted white supremacists, who’s been sued for housing discrimination against communities of color, who has attacked a judge for his Mexican heritage and promised a mass deportation force, is someone who is very much peddling bigotry and prejudice and paranoia,” Clinton said.
 
The former first lady dismissed Trump’s shifting rhetoric on immigration, after the businessman indicted he would allow some people who are in the country illegally to stay after previously vowing to deport all 11 million. Trump pledged “no amnesty” on Fox, but said “we work with” illegal immigrants.
 
“He is trying to do a shuffle here. But I think we need to look at the entire context,” Clinton said on CNN. “We need to believe him when he bullies and threatens to throw out every immigrant in the country and changes his position three time in one day. It sends a message that it is just a desperate effort to try land somewhere that isn’t as devastating to his campaign.”