Clinton needs to hold on to minority support to beat her Republican rival in the November 8 election and yesterday delivered a speech blasting him as a divisive candidate stoking racist groups.
Trump has polled poorly with minorities but lately has tried to broaden his appeal to them, hinting at a softening of his hard-line position on immigration.
In an appearance in Jackson, Mississippi, on Wednesday, he had called Clinton a “bigot” who would do nothing to help blacks.
“We’ve always had great relationships with the African American community and I’ve made it such a focal point,” Trump said yesterday before a meeting at his New York headquarters with black and Hispanic Republicans. “They have really been let down by Hillary Clinton and the Democrats.”
Trump has been heavily criticised by minorities for his proposals on immigration, which include deporting millions of undocumented foreigners, building a wall along the Mexican border, and suspending Muslim immigration to shore up national security.
But recently he has suggested he could soften those positions.
In comments broadcast on Fox News on Wednesday night, Trump said he would be willing to work with immigrants who have abided by US laws while living in the country, backing away from his insistence during the primaries that he would try to deport all 11mn undocumented immigrants.
Trump said yesterday that he would deliver an immigration speech detailing his updated positions at a later date, after canceling previous plans to address the issue.
The softening comes as Trump hopes to erode some of Clinton’s strong support with Hispanic and black voters, a central part of his campaign message for the past two weeks.
Clinton was meanwhile due to paint Trump as the candidate of the far-right, claiming “a radical fringe” has taken over the Republican Party.
After releasing a hard-hitting ad that tethered Trump to the Ku Klux Klan, Clinton was to use a speech in Reno, Nevada to argue that he has brought racism to the political mainstream.
When asked by CNN to respond to Trump’s charge that she was a bigot, Clinton said he was “taking a hate movement mainstream”.
“He’s brought it into his campaign,” she said. “He’s bringing it to our communities and our country.”
“From the start, Donald Trump has built his campaign on prejudice and paranoia,” Clinton will say, according to excerpts released by her campaign. “He’s taking hate groups mainstream and helping a radical fringe take over one of America’s two major political parties.”
As Trump strives to temper his hardline anti-immigrant message in a bid to halt collapsing poll numbers, Clinton’s campaign has been at pains to remind voters of the New York tycoon’s more controversial views.
In New Hampshire yesterday, Trump trashed Clinton’s claims about him and his supporters.
“She paints decent Americans as racists,” he said to angry jeers.
Clinton has accused “decent Americans who support this campaign, your campaign, of being racists, which we are not” he said to angry jeers from the crowd. “It’s a tired, disgusting argument.”
Trump also accused Clinton of being behind a “vast criminal enterprise run out of the State Department”, suggesting that she had sold valuable access to those who donated to her family’s Clinton Foundation.
