Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump had called his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton a “bigot” earlier once but could not back up this claim. Mr. Trump got his chance to reiterate his charge after Ms. Clinton told a gathering of donors on Friday that half of his supporters are a “basket of deplorables”. By Saturday evening Ms. Clinton expressed regret over the description after it became controversial but the words might haunt her through the rest of the campaign, as her opponents have seized on the opportunity.

“To just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic — you name it,” she said, triggering an avalanche of reactions from rivals and talk radio callers. She retracted her words with a statement later. “Last night I was ‘grossly generalistic’ and that’s never a good idea. I regret saying ‘half’ — that was wrong. He has built his campaign largely on prejudice and paranoia and given a national platform to hateful views and voices, including by retweeting fringe bigots with a few dozen followers and spreading their message to 11 million people.” Her campaign managers later explained that what she meant to say was “some” of the Mr. Trump supporters are “deplorables” and the campaign stood by that position.

Mr. Trump dismissed her retraction. “For the first time in a long while, her true feelings came out, showing bigotry and hatred for millions of Americans. How can she be president of our country when she has such contempt and disdain for so many great Americans?,” he said in a statement. Earlier in the week, Mr. Trump’s praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin was at the centre of a controversy, as Ms. Clinton sought to corner him on that issue. Mr. Trump has insulted multiple social groups on several occasions but has never retracted or apologized for any. After his insult of the family of a slain Muslim soldier, last month he regretted in general terms for things said “in the heat of the moment.” “Believe me, I regret,” he said, never specifying what was he regretting.

“Isn’t it disgraceful that Hillary Clinton makes the worst mistake of the political season and instead of owning up to this grotesque attack on American voters, she tries t