Words
“Deplorables,” “superpredators,” “we came, we saw, he died” and the sniper fire
RECORD / AT A GLANCE
Mostly real quotes, often cut
Most of these quotes are real. Several are cut in a way that changes them. Two (Bosnia, Edmund Hillary) were untrue and she or her campaign took them back. Two popular claims (the drone on Assange, starting birtherism) are not supported.
THE EVENTS / THE INVESTIGATION / THE STORY
1996
At a New Hampshire event she backs the crime bill.
Mar 2008
She says she landed “under sniper fire” in 1996, then says she misspoke.
20 Oct 2011
“We came, we saw, he died.”
9 Sep 2016
At a New York fundraiser she describes half of Trump’s supporters.
READ THE FILE
The usual clip leaves out the second half.
A 1996 remark she later said she regretted.
A laugh on camera after Gaddafi’s death.
Video showed a greeting ceremony.
He climbed Everest when she was five.
An anonymously sourced 2016 blog post.
Some 2008 supporters spread it. Her campaign did not start it.
Open an article for its evidence, labeled AI assessment and numbered sources. Read the complete static edition ↗
OPEN THE RECORD
Numbered citations in each article identify the relevant sources. These records have different purposes and evidentiary weight.
Pool transcript, including the second half of the remark that is usually cut.
Gives the 1996 quote in full and her 2016 response.
His own words at the NAACP convention.
The recorded remark, in context.
Contemporaneous rating with the CBS footage.
Recounts the 1996 footage and her 2008 retraction.
Contemporaneous note on the campaign’s concession; Sir Edmund became famous in 1953, six years after she was born.
Her campaign’s concession that the Everest story was “a sweet family story.”
Traces the claim to an anonymously sourced 2016 True Pundit post.
Separates 2008 supporters who spread the rumor from the campaign itself and the Mark Penn memo.
Follow-up on the Blumenthal and McClatchy account. Explains what the 2008 email does and does not show.
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The usual clip leaves out the second half.
At a September 2016 fundraiser Clinton said: “To just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables… The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it.” She said the other half “feel that the government has let them down” and are “desperate for change,” and “Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.” [1]
Pool transcript, including the second half of the remark that is usually cut.
A 1996 remark she later said she regretted.
In 1996, backing her husband’s 1994 crime bill, Clinton spoke of gangs of kids: “They are often the kinds of kids that are called superpredators — no conscience, no empathy. We can talk about why they ended up that way, but first, we have to bring them to heel.” She did not name a race. In 2016 she said: “Looking back, I shouldn’t have used those words, and I wouldn’t use them today.” PolitiFact rated mostly true the claim that she labelled Black youth that way, given the context. [1]
Bill Clinton told the NAACP in 2015 that the crime bill “made the problem worse” on mass incarceration. [2]
Gives the 1996 quote in full and her 2016 response.
His own words at the NAACP convention.
A laugh on camera after Gaddafi’s death.
On 20 October 2011, between television interviews in Kabul, an aide told Clinton of reports that Muammar Gaddafi had been killed. She shared a laugh with a CBS reporter and joked: “We came, we saw, he died.” [1]
The recorded remark, in context.
Video showed a greeting ceremony.
In March 2008 she said of a 1996 trip to Tuzla: “I remember landing under sniper fire… we just ran with our heads down.” CBS video showed her walking calmly and greeting a girl on the tarmac. A week later she said she “misspoke”: “So I made a mistake. That happens.” [1][2]
Contemporaneous rating with the CBS footage.
Recounts the 1996 footage and her 2008 retraction.
He climbed Everest when she was five.
Clinton said her mother named her after Sir Edmund Hillary. He was unknown until his 1953 Everest climb; she was born in 1947. In October 2006 her campaign called it “a sweet family story” her mother told her. [1][2]
Contemporaneous note on the campaign’s concession; Sir Edmund became famous in 1953, six years after she was born.
Her campaign’s concession that the Everest story was “a sweet family story.”
An anonymously sourced 2016 blog post.
On 2 October 2016 the site True Pundit reported that Clinton asked of Julian Assange, “Can’t we just drone this guy?”, citing unnamed State Department sources. No document or named witness has backed it. Asked about it two days later, Clinton said she did not recall it and that any such remark “would have been a joke.” Snopes rated it unproven. [1]
Traces the claim to an anonymously sourced 2016 True Pundit post.
Some 2008 supporters spread it. Her campaign did not start it.
PolitiFact found that some Clinton supporters spread the rumor that Barack Obama was not born in the United States late in the 2008 primary, but “the record does not show Clinton or her campaign ever promoting the birther theory, let alone starting it.” Two campaign volunteers who forwarded emails saying Obama was a Muslim resigned. [1]
A former McClatchy bureau chief said in 2016 that Sidney Blumenthal, a Clinton ally, urged him in 2008 to check whether Obama was born in Kenya. Blumenthal called that false; McClatchy confirmed the meeting but found no proof he questioned Obama’s birthplace. [2]
What we can’t tell you. The Blumenthal–Asher meeting is one man’s word against another’s.
Separates 2008 supporters who spread the rumor from the campaign itself and the Mark Penn memo.
Follow-up on the Blumenthal and McClatchy account. Explains what the 2008 email does and does not show.
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