New York Governor Kathy Hochle made a vile move on Thursday, calling Donald Trump’s supporters “clowns,” a comment that some have compared to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s 2016 comment calling them a “bunch of deplorables.”
Hawkle made the remarks to CNN’s Jake Tapper ahead of a Trump rally in the Bronx on Thursday, while boasting about his confidence in President Joe Biden’s electoral prospects in New York state.
“Jake, I’ll tell you what’s going to happen that’s not going to change anything is for Donald Trump to take the reins and invite all his clowns to a place like the Bronx,” Hokl said.
“If he wants to spend his time holding fake rallies and pretending he has support, then he’s free to do so,” the governor continued.
“He’s probably spent more time in the Bronx than she’s spent in the Bronx,” Gerald Kasser, chairman of the New York Conservative Party, told The Post.
“Do you really want to make comments like that while talking about New York City? Maybe she needs to spend more time outside the ivory tower in midtown Manhattan,” he added, noting Trump’s favorability among the Bronx’s majority-Hispanic voters.
Haukle’s comments immediately sparked a wave of criticism, with some drawing comparisons to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s infamous comments from 2016, which many saw as an insult to Trump’s MAGA supporters.
“You know, very generally speaking, half of Trump’s supporters would fall into what I call the ‘deplorables’ group,” Clinton said at a 2016 Manhattan fundraiser hosted by LGBT groups. “They’re racists, they’re sexists, they’re homophobes, they’re xenophobes, they’re Islamophobes, you name it.”
A statewide poll conducted by Siena College earlier this year showed Trump receiving roughly equal support as Biden among Hispanic voters.
“Kathy Hockle is outraged that President Trump is drawing crowds in her state that she could only dream of. The Democratic Party is in disarray as Americans, including Hispanics and Blacks, are waking up to the fact that Joe Biden and the Democrats have been using and scamming them to get their votes for decades,” a Trump campaign spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
Biden handily won New York state in 2020, with just over 60% of the vote.
A spokesman for Hokell’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.
“Kathy Hawkle has once again shown her true colors, disrespecting millions of New Yorkers and displaying a shocking level of intolerance and contempt for a sizable portion of our state’s population,” a spokesperson for the state Republican Committee said in a statement.
“Governor Hockle should immediately apologize to the New Yorkers who attended last night’s rally precisely because they believe in a secure border, a safe city, and oppose Democratic policies that have made our city, state, and country less affordable, less livable, and less safe,” Assemblyman Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island) said in a statement in response to Hockle’s remarks.
