Clinton ‘regrets’ calling Trump supporters a ‘basket of deplorables’

US Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has expressed “regret” after labelling “half” of her rival Donald Trump’s supporters a "basket of deplorables".

Mrs Clinton was speaking at an "LGBT for Hillary" gala in New York yesterday when she criticised the Republican supporters.

“To just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables,” she said.

"The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic – you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.”

Mrs Clinton said that the group was "irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America".

She has since admitted her comments were “wrong”.

“Last night I was grossly generalistic, and that's never a good idea. I regret saying ‘half’- that was wrong,” Mrs Clinton said in an official statement.

“Many of Trump's supporters are hard-working Americans who just don’t feel like the economy or our political system are working for them…”

“I'm determined to bring our country together and make our economy work for everyone,” she added.

Mr Trump took to Twitter to slam Mrs Clinton’s comments.

“Wow, Hillary Clinton was SO INSULTING to my supporters, millions of amazing, hard-working people. I think it will cost her at the Polls!,” he tweeted.

“While Hillary said horrible things about my supporters, and while many of her supporters will never vote for me, I still respect them all!”, he wrote in another post.

US President Barack Obama also chimed in to the debate on social media.

“We need a president who is fighting for all Americans, not one who writes off nearly half the country,” he tweeted.

More than 17,000 thousand Twitter users have retweeted the President’s post.