BALTIMORE — Donald Trump delivered a searing indictment against Hillary Clinton during a speech Monday, claiming she divided Americans as though they “were objects, not human beings” when she labeled half of his supporters “deplorable” last week.
Speaking at the National Guard Association’s 138th general conference, the Republican presidential candidate repeatedly knocked Clinton for her “vile” attacks, claiming she “mocks and demeans hard-working Americans” while living a “sequestered life behind gates and walls and guards.”
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“She called these patriotic men and women every vile name in the book. She called them racist, sexist, xenophobic, Islamophobic,” Trump recalled. “She divided people into baskets as though they were objects not human beings.”
“You can’t lead this nation if you have such a low opinion for its citizens,” he charged.
Trump continued, telling the crowd he was “deeply shocked and alarmed” by Clinton choosing to “attack, slander, smear [and] demean” his supporters.
“We have the support of cops… carpenters and welders,” he noted. “These were the people Hillary Clinton so viciously demonized. These were among the countless Americans that Hillary Clinton called deplorable, irredeemable and un-American.”
“She spoke with hatred and derision for the people who make this country,” he said. “She spoke with contempt for the people who follow the rules, pay their taxes and scratch out a living for their family.”
The candidate’s decision to spend so much time responding to a single comment made by Clinton was “appropriate” because of the comment itself, retired National Guard member Lori Noble told the Washington Examiner.
“I think Hillary Clinton thinks she’s above most Americans and that we’re beneath her and so I was not very happy with that comment,” she explained. “So he definitely struck the right chord today.”
But Noble and others in the audience were more impressed with the commitment Trump made to the National Guard, an agency he described as often being “the first and the last line of defense for our people.”
“I will pledge to give you the resources, the equipment and the support that you deserve,” Trump said to applause from the hundreds of NGA members gathered in downtown Baltimore. “You deserve a government that recognizes and honors your contribution and ensures you have the resources you need to get the job done and to get the job done right.”
“That’s what people wanted to hear,” said Van Hipp, Jr., the current chairman of the American Defense Initiative and former Deputy Assistant Secretary to the U.S. Army. “Him saying that the National Guard will have a direct line to him in the Oval Office — I have never ever heard that coming from any major presidential candidate.”
While promising to expand the National Guard and defend the agency “at every turn,” it was one of Trump’s last lines in his speech that earned him a standing ovation and resounding applause.
“We will be one people under one God, saluting one American flag,” the GOP presidential hopeful told the roomful of men and women in uniform.
“That brought down the house,” Hipp said.
