Hillary Clinton was met by dozens of enraged protesters and a middle finger or two during a campaign stop in Williamson, West Virginia, earlier this week.
Clinton sparked anger in Appalachia after her March promise to “put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.”
The crowd demanded that Clinton “go home!” and held up a finger at her large black “Scooby Van.” Protesters also took aim at West Virginia senator Joe Manchin, dubbing him “Traitor Joe” for being a Clinton supporter.
Inside the event, Bo Copley, a laid off coal miner, confronted Clinton about her pledge to eliminate coal jobs.
“I just want to know how you can 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,” Copley said. “Because those people out there don’t see you as a friend.”
Clinton apologized for the remark and told Copley that she misspoke.
“It was a misstatement because what I was saying was that the way things are going now, we will continue to lose jobs,” Clinton said, and added that she would do all she could to improve the lives of West Virginians, “regardless of whether people are yelling at me.”
Clinton also walked back her promise to destroy coal jobs in a March 15 letter to Manchin, whose aides said he was “troubled and concerned.”
“Simply put, I was mistaken in my remarks,” Clinton wrote, and assured the senator that she was devoted to “bringing jobs to Appalachia.”
Protesters also confronted Bill Clinton during an event in Logan, West Virginia, Sunday, where one man asked Clinton about his wife’s pledge.
“He’s getting laid off and wiped out, what we gonna do about that,” Manchin told the former president when he couldn’t hear what the protester had said.
“Well, that’s good, that’s a fair question,” Clinton said.
Logan town officials attempted to prevent the visit in an email to Manchin, according to WVNS-TV.
“Bill and Hillary Clinton are simply not welcome in our town,” the email said. “Mrs. Clinton’s anti-coal messages are the last thing our suffering town needs at this point. The policies that have been championed by people like Mrs. Clinton have all but devastated our fair town, and honestly, enough is enough.”
