Hillary: Trump's 'Real Message' Seems to be 'Make America Hate Again'

In a speech largely aimed at moderate Republicans, Hillary Clinton declared that the “alt-right” running through Donald Trump’s campaign “is not conservatism as we have known it” and “is not Republicanism as we have known it.”

Speaking in Reno today, Clinton compared Donald Trump’s proposal for a religious test of immigrants to Islamic State policies, branded Russian President Vladimir Putin “the grand-godfather of this global brand of extreme nationalism,” and said Trump’s “real message seems to be ‘make America hate again.'”

“No one should have any illusions about what’s really going on here. The names may have changed, racists now call themselves racialists, white supremacists now call themselves white nationalists, the paranoid fringe now calls itself alt-right, but the hate burns just as bright,” Clinton said.

“Now Trump is trying to re-brand himself as well. But don’t be fooled. There’s an old Mexican proverb that says, ‘Tell me with whom you walk, and I will tell you who you are.’ So we know who Trump is.”

At the beginning of her address, Clinton panned Trump’s efforts in recent days to appeal to the African-American community.

“Trump has stood up in front of largely white audiences and described black communities in such insulting and ignorant terms. Poverty, rejection, horrible education, no housing, no homes, no ownership, crime at levels nobody has seen. Right now he said you can walk down the street and get shot. Those are his words,” she said. “But when I hear them, I think to myself, how sad. Donald Trump misses so much. He doesn’t see the success of black leaders in every field, the vibrancy of black-owned businesses, the strength of the black church. He doesn’t see the excellence of historically black colleges and universities or the pride of black parents watching their children thrive.”

“He apparently didn’t see Police Chief [David] Brown of Dallas on television after the murders of five of his officers, conducting himself with such dignity. He certainly doesn’t have any solutions to take on the reality of systemic racism and create more equity and opportunity in communities of color, and for every American.”

Clinton said Trump is “reinforcing harmful stereotypes and offering a dog whistle to his most hateful supporters,” and “a man with a long history of racial discrimination, who traffics in dark conspiracy theories drawn from the pages of supermarket tabloids and the far dark reaches of the Internet should never run our government our command our military.”

Among those conspiracy theories, she noted, were the allegations that Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) father was connected to the JFK assassination — “perhaps in Trump’s mind, because Mr. Cruz was a Cuban immigrant, he must have had something to do with it” — and the “latest paranoid fever dream…about my health. And all I can say is, Donald, dream on.”

In slamming Trump’s pick of Breitbart chief Steve Bannon as his new campaign CEO, Clinton read off a series of headlines from the website: “Birth control makes women unattractive and crazy.” “Would you rather your child had feminism or cancer?” “Gabby Giffords: The gun control movement’s human shield.” “Hoist it high and proud: The confederate flag proclaims a glorious heritage.”

“Racist ideas, race-baiting ideas, anti-Muslim, anti- immigrant, anti-woman, all key tenants making up an emerging racist ideology known as the alt-right,” she said.

“…Twenty years ago when Bob Dole accepted the Republican nomination, he pointed to the exits in the convention hall, and told any racist in the party to get out. The week after 9/11 George W. Bush went to a mosque and declared for everyone to hear that Muslims love America just as much as I do. In 2008, John McCain told his own supporters that they were wrong about the man he was trying to defeat. Senator McCain made sure they knew Barrack Obama, he said, was an American citizen and a decent person. We need that kind of leadership again.”

Before Clinton spoke in Nevada, Trump told an audience in Manchester, N.H., that he didn’t want to “dignify” Hillary’s remarks “by dwelling on them too much, but a response is required for the sake of all decent voters she is trying to smear.”

“The news reports are that Hillary Clinton is going to try to accuse this campaign, and the millions of decent Americans who support this campaign, of being racists,” Trump said. “…She lies, she smears, she paints decent Americans as racists. She bullies voters, who only want a better future, and tries to intimidate them out of voting for change.”

“People who want their laws enforced and respected, and who want their border secured, are not racists. They are patriotic Americans of all backgrounds who want their jobs protected and their country kept safe,” he added.

He also fired back on Twitter:

Hillary Clinton’s short speech is pandering to the worst instincts in our society. She should be ashamed of herself!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 25, 2016

In an interview being aired on CNN tonight, Trump stood by his assertion that Clinton is a “bigot.”

“Her policies are bigoted because she knows they’re not going to work,” he said. “…I think she has been extremely, extremely bad for African-Americans… Hispanics.”

Pressed on whether this was a reflection of any bigoted views toward a certain race or ethnicity, Trump replied, “Or maybe she’s lazy.”