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Failed 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton called supporters of former President Donald Trump “cult members” who require “formal deprogramming” while explaining in a CNN interview why Democrats needed to defeat the Republican front-runner and his allies.
“We had very strong partisans in both parties in the past, and we had very bitter battles over all kinds of things — gun control and climate change and the economy and taxes — but there wasn’t this little tail of extremism, waving, you know, wagging the dog of the Republican Party as it is today,” Clinton told host Christiane Amanpour.
“And sadly, so many of those extremists, those MAGA extremists, take their marching orders from Donald Trump who has no credibility left by any measure,” she went on, referring to the 77-year-old’s Make America Great Again slogan. “He’s only in it for himself.”
“And when do they break with him? You know, because at some point, you know, maybe there needs to be a formal deprogramming of the cult members, but something needs to happen,” Clinton said.
The former first lady, senator from New York and secretary of state urged “sane” and “pragmatic Republicans” to work with colleagues across the aisle to neutralize “extreme measures and the people who promote them.”
Asked how that could come about given Trump’s commanding lead in the 2024 presidential race, Clinton said he and his supporters must suffer “defeat” at the ballot box.
“We have to defeat them, and we have to defeat those who are the election deniers — as we did in 2020 and 2022,” she added. “And we have to, you know, just be smarter about how we are trying to empower the right people inside the Republican Party.”
Clinton, 75, has been a harsh critic of Trump both during and after her presidential run against him in 2016.
In viral remarks made at a September 2016 fundraiser, Clinton knocked her opponent for winning half of his support from “a basket of deplorables.”
“You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the ‘basket of deplorables,’” she told LGBTQ advocates at the Manhattan event. “The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it.”
Clinton also said Trump’s insurgent campaign had “given voice” to white nationalist and antisemitic ideas by echoing their “rhetoric’’ in social media posts.
Trump’s campaign shot back that the comments “revealed her true contempt for everyday Americans,” forcing her to walk them back in a statement the next day.
“Last night I was ‘grossly generalistic,’ and that’s never a good idea,” Clinton said. “I regret saying ‘half’ — that was wrong.”
As late as 2019, Clinton referred to Trump as an “illegitimate president,” claiming in a CBS “Sunday Morning” interview that his campaign engaged in “voter suppression,” “voter purging,” “hacking” and “false stories” to win the election.
She has also repeatedly dismissed accusations that her campaign ginned up false claims of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, referring last year to a report on the effort from special counsel John Durham as a “fake scandal.”
Both the Durham report and an earlier report from special counsel Robert Mueller found that the Trump campaign did not conspire with the Russian government to tilt the outcome of the 2016 election.
Clinton also gleefully cheered on Trump’s indictment in south Florida earlier this year for improperly holding onto classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate, bursting into a cackle when asked during a podcast interview about it.
She made no mention of having shared classified material herself on a private email server while serving in the Obama administration, which led to no federal charges after a closely watched investigation.
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