Hirono draws heat for calling President Trump’s supporters ‘white supremacists’

HONOLULU, Hawaii (HawaiiNewsNow) - Congressional Republicans expressed outrage Monday after US Sen. Mazie Hirono called President Trump’s supporters “white supremacists.”

Hirono, D-Hawaii, made the comments during an interview on MSNBC in which she called for a more coordinated federal response to the pandemic and its economic fallout along with systemic racism.

“We should be dealing with economic crisis. And we should be dealing with the racism that is in our country, to which the president speaks to, because he has a base of supporters who are very anti-immigrant and white supremacist,” Hirono said.

“That’s a lot of his base and who he speaks to, so the divisiveness continues.”

Republican Party spokeswoman Elizabeth Herrington called the remarks “disgusting.”

“Democrat senator just called 63 million Americans and counting ‘white supremacists,‘” she said, on Twitter. “Smearing us as ‘irredeemable and deplorable’ just wasn’t despicable enough.”

Asked for a response, Hirono’s office said: “Their president calls white supremacists ‘very fine people’ and uses racist language to try to win an election. Their outrage is misplaced.”

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