Ahead of a speech Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is set to make in Reno, Nevada on Thursday, the candidate previewed that her remarks will link GOP rival Donald Trump to the white nationalist "alt-right" movement. Speaking with Anderson Cooper on CNN Wednesday, Clinton said that Trump is "[T]aking a hate movement mainstream," according to CNN.
Clinton further told Cooper:
[Trump] is bringing it to our communities and our country. And someone who has questioned the citizenship of the first African-American president, who has courted white supremacists, who has been sued for housing discrimination against communities of color, who has attacked a judge for his Mexican heritage and promised a mass deportation force, is someone who is very much peddling bigotry and prejudice and paranoia.
Trump has been making attempts to appeal to marginalized communities, particularly communities of color in recent weeks, making a speech (to a reportedly all-white crowd) arguing that African American voters should vote for him in November. He also said this week he would consider "softer" approaches to immigration reform. Critics have called this move on Trump's part pandering and flip-flopping that won't move underrepresented voters in light of the racist and xenophobic remarks that have come to characterize the Trump campaign.
Earlier Wednesday, Trump told a crowd in Jackson, Mississippi that "Hillary Clinton is a bigot who sees people of color only as votes, not as human beings worthy of a better future," reiterating the speech he gave appealing to African American voters last week.
Regarding the link to the alt-right movement, a term that describes a far-right movement of white nationalism and even neo-Nazism, Politico reported that Trump campaign spokesperson Kellyanne Conway said she is "not familiar" with the alt-right and rejected the idea that Trump's campaign is promoting or a part of the alt-right. "We’ve never even discussed it internally," Conway said. "It certainly isn't part of our strategy meetings. It’s nothing that Mr. Trump says out on the stump."
