Trump compares Pelosi’s ‘crumbs’ comments to Clinton’s ‘deplorables’ remark

President Trump on Thursday compared House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) “crumbs” comments about the tax law to Hillary Clinton’s controversial “deplorables” comment made during the 2016 presidential campaign.

“We got hit with these corporations giving tremendous bonuses to everybody that Nancy Pelosi called crumbs,” the president said in West Virginia at the congressional Republicans’ retreat. “That could be like deplorable, does that make sense? Deplorable and crumbs? Those two words, they seem to have a resemblance. I hope it has the same meaning.”

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The president later added that bonuses of a few thousand dollars “are not crumbs, it’s a lot of money.”

Pelosi’s office quickly fired back.

“What’s deplorable is Republicans’ desperate effort to hide the multibillion-dollar corporate windfalls of the GOP tax scam behind a handful of meager, one-time bonuses,” said Drew Hammill, a spokesman for Pelosi.

“The casual dishonesty of taking Leader Pelosi’s words out of context is nothing compared to the dishonesty of Republicans’ sales pitch on their tax scam itself.”

Pelosi has been frequently criticized by Republicans in recent weeks for saying that bonuses companies are giving out following the tax law’s passage are “crumbs.” The House Democratic leader has said that the number of benefits that are going to the middle class pales in comparison to the size of the benefits that wealthy individuals and corporations are receiving from the legislation.

Republicans have said that Pelosi’s comments show that she’s out of touch with ordinary Americans. That’s a similar argument to the one Republicans made after Clinton said in a fundraiser during the 2016 campaign that about half of Trump’s supporters could be put into a “basket of deplorables.” The Trump backers Clinton suggested were problematic included racists, xenophobes and homophobes.

Updated at 2:11 p.m.