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Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton continue their war of words as the nation draws closer to the 2016 presidential election.

Clinton, who is still leading in national polls despite losing ground to the GOP presidential nominee, is currently embroiled in a controversy over a series of comments she made about Trump supporters.

The Democratic presidential nominee was quoted as saying:

“You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it.”

Roland Martin and his panel of guests took a moment during Tuesday’s edition of NewsOne Now to dissect Clinton’s comment. Martin, who is quick to fact-check any and everyone on NewsOne Now, took a moment to dissect polling data, which offered some insight into Trump supporters.

An NBC News / Surveymonkey poll compiled in February found that two-thirds of Trump supporters hold an unfavorable view of Muslims living in America. Out of those surveyed, 87 percent wanted to ban Muslims from entering the United States.

A Reuters/IPSOS poll from June revealed that 58 percent of Trump supporters had an unfavorable view of Muslims.

Other key findings in the Reuters poll state:

  • 52 percent of the GOP presidential nominee’s supporters oppose rights for LGBT Americans.
  • 50 percent of Trump backers viewed African-Americans as being violent and criminal.
  • 40 percent of Trump supporters found Blacks lazy and rude.

A Public Policy poll released in May of 2016 found that 65 percent of Trump supporters think President Barack Obama is a secret Muslim. The survey also found that 59 percent of Trump’s followers believe President Obama was not born in the United States.

Pew Research Center calculated that 69 percent of Trump backers claim immigrants are a burden on America, while 50 percent say immigrants will commit serious crimes.

“That sounds pretty damn deplorable to me,” concluded Martin.

NewsOne Now panelist Dr. Chris Metzler, a Political Scientist and a Republican, responded to Martin’s assessment. “For me, it’s a bad time to be a Republican,” he said.

“For him (Donald Trump) to come out and say that she (Hillary Clinton) is running a hate-filled campaign goes back to this whole notion of pot meet kettle because he, from the very beginning, started this whole kind of hate campaign.”

Metzler continued: “For him to say ‘Therefore, she’s disqualified from running for president’… c’mon man, move away from that.”

Watch Roland Martin and the NewsOne Now panel dissect Clinton’s remarks in the video clip above.

PHOTO CREDIT: Getty

Watch NewsOne Now with Roland Martin, in its new time slot on TV One.

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