Deplorables Hate Being Called Deplorable So Much They'll Reëlect Donald Trump President Out Of Spite #34 "Basket of deplorables" is a phrase from a 2016 presidential election campaign speech delivered by Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton on September 9, 2016, at a campaign fundraising event, which she used to describe half of the supporters of her opponent, Republican nominee Donald Trump saying "They're racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic". The next day, she expressed regret for "saying half", while insisting that Trump had deplorably amplified "hateful views and voices". The Trump campaign repeatedly used the phrase against Clinton during and after the 2016 presidential election. Many Trump supporters adopted the "deplorable" moniker for themselves in reappropriation. Some journalists and political analysts questioned whether this incident played a role in the election's outcome. Clinton admitted in her 2017 book What Happened that it was one of the factors for her loss. "You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years, and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate, and they have not," said Barack Obama, "And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or antitrade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."