Democratic Presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton said she was "very disappointed" in GOP candidate Donald Trump's comments on illegal immigrants bringing in drugs and committing murder.
"I feel very bad and very disappointed with him and with the Republican Party for not responding immediately and saying, 'Enough. Stop it,'" Clinton said
Tuesday in an interview with CNN's Brianna Keilar. The interview aired on CNN's "The Situation Room."
Clinton said Republicans are in general agreement on immigration, even when they do condemn Trump's words.
"They range across a spectrum of being grudgingly welcoming or hostile to immigrants," she said, adding that she supports comprehensive immigration reform and a pathway to citizenship.
Bush, she said, doesn't believe in a path to citizenship.
"If he did at one time he no longer does," she added. "I think that's a mistake. We know we're not going to deport 11 or 12 million people. We shouldn't be breaking up families, we shouldn't be stopping people from having the opportunity to be fully integrated legally within our country."
Clinton supported the concept of "sanctuary cities" for illegal immigrants when she ran for president in 2008, but said she sees a difference between someone who has been charged with minor offenses, such as traffic violations, and Francisco Sanchez, the man charged with killing a San Francisco woman last week.
"Any city should listen to the Department of Homeland Security, which as I understand it, urged them to deport this man again after he got out of prison another time," she said.
Sanchez had seven felony convictions and had been deported five times.
Clinton also said she was not responsible for the poll numbers that show her trust among Americans falling.
Echoing her claims of a "vast right-wing conspiracy" from the 1990s, Clinton said that those numbers aren't surprising "when you are subjected to the kind of constant barrage of attacks that are largely fomented by and coming from the right."
"People should and do trust me," Clinton said. "I have every confidence that will be the outcome of this election. I cannot decide what the attacks on me will be."
Clinton still leads the Democratic race, but has seen gains from Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who describes himself as a Democratic socialist. He is running in the Democratic primaries and has seen a surge of support that Clinton aides have said concerns them.
Clinton said she always thought she would face a competitive primary and not a "coronation," as others predicted.
Asked about the possibility of another Clinton-Bush match-up a quarter-century after her husband faced the father of current GOP frontrunner Jeb Bush, Clinton said that is up to the voters in each party.
"What's great about America is anybody can run for president," she said. "That is literally true, and you have do go out and you have to do what everybody else does: You have to make your case, you have to have your agenda, raise the money, you have to work really hard."
Clinton also was asked about the private email server she used as secretary of state. She insisted everything she did was "permitted," including the wiping of its contents after turning over the emails her staff deemed related to government business.
"I didn't have to turn over anything. I chose to turn over 55,000 pages because I wanted to go above and beyond what was expected of me," she said. "Because I knew the vast majority of everything that was official already was in the State Department system. And now I think it's kind of fun, people get a real-time behind the scenes look at what I was emailing about, and what I was communicating about."
The interview was Clinton's first since she announced her presidential bid earlier this year. CNN touted the interview, with anchor Brooke Baldwin saying, "This is a big day for us here at CNN" about the network scoring the Clinton sit-down.
Clinton has been criticized for avoiding the press during her campaign. She told CNN she is running her campaign for the American people and not the press, though she respects the job the press has to do.
She said her campaign will move on her own timetable and not what the press expects of her.
Clinton spoke with local and national reporters in Iowa City, Iowa shortly before taping her interview with Keilar, and CNN carried that exchange live.
Clinton was asked by the press about gun control, the Greek bankruptcy, Chinese hackers, the Iran nuclear talks and her regrets over voting to support the Iraq War.
Clinton said she favors Second Amendment gun rights, but wants to work harder "to keep guns out of the hands of people that should not have them."
She said she wants to see better coordination between the public and private sectors to stop hacking from China, Russia, North Korea and Iran.
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