Hillary Clinton's Shocking Statement About The Coal Industry Lands Her In Hot Water

During a West Virginia campaign stop, Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton faced a bevy of angry voters after she had said she planned to "put a lot of coal miners out of business" with green energy initiatives. While there, a tearful Bo Copley, 39, explained that he recently lost his job at a coal company and doesn't know how to tell his children. He confronted Clinton about her plan to "put the coal industry out of business."

Clinton made that statement at a CNN town hall event in March. Since then, she has repeatedly apologized for her comment saying it was "a misstatement." Clinton was asked to, "Make the case to poor whites who vote Republican why they should vote for you and your economic policies." Clinton responded:

"I'm the only candidate which has a policy about how to bring economic opportunity using clean renewable energy as the key into coal country. Because we're gonna put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business, right Tim?

And we're gonna make it clear that we don't want to forget those people. Those people labored in those mines for generations, losing their health, often losing their lives, to turn on our lights and power our factories.

Now, we've gotta move away from coal and all the other fossil fuels, but I don't wanna move away from the people who did the best they could to produce the energy that we relied on.

So whether it's coal country or Indian country or poor urban areas, there is a lot of poverty in America. We have gone backwards. We were moving in the right direction. In the '90s more people were lifted out of poverty than any time in recent history.

Because of the terrible economic policies of the Bush administration, President Obama was left with the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, and people fell back into poverty because they lost jobs, they lost homes, they lost opportunities, and hope.

So I am passionate about this, which is why I have put forward specific plans about how we incentivize more jobs, more investment in poor communities, and put people to work."

Last fall, Clinton released a $30 billion plan focused on aiding communities dependent on coal production and investing in renewable energy there. Clinton added, "Whether or not West Virginia supports me, I'm going to support you."

Photo: Gawker