Hillary Clinton vowed to fight for coal miners on Monday, insisting that her comments on putting coal miners out of business was simply taken out of context.
At a town hall event in March, Clinton proclaimed that she was the only candidate that had a plan to bring “economic opportunity using clean renewable energy” and noted that a lot of coal miners and coal companies would be put out of business.
Clinton changed her tune on Monday when speaking to retired mine workers in West Virginia. She said the remark was taken out of context, and pointed to her policy and record she presented last summer as proof that she is supportive of helping coal country.
The former secretary of state called it a “misstatement.”
“What I was saying is that the way things are going now, we will continue to lose jobs,” she said. The Democratic front-runner added that she didn’t mean “we were going to do it,” but rather that jobs would be lost if they failed to take action to prevent it.
Clinton acknowledged that her statement angered many people, and she apologized for the grief her remarks caused. She said that while she cannot take back the statement, she wanted the retired mine workers to know that she would do everything she could to help no matter the political consequences.
