Bill Clinton suggests Trump slogan racist – but he used the same one

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Bill Clinton says Trump's campaign slogan is racist

Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway reacts

Former President Bill Clinton might want to keep the racism accusations to himself from now on -- after ripping Donald Trump for a slogan he's used repeatedly since his 'Comeback Kid' days.

The 42nd president on Wednesday, while stumping in Orlando for Hillary Clinton, suggested Trump’s campaign rallying cry, “Make America Great Again,” is racist code.

“I’m actually old enough to remember the good old days, and they weren’t all that good in many ways,” Clinton said. “That message where ‘I’ll give you America great again’ is if you’re a white Southerner, you know exactly what it means, don’t you?”

The crowd roared as Clinton continued. “What it means is ‘I’ll give you an economy you had 50 years ago, and I’ll move you back up on the social totem pole and other people down,’” he said.

The problem is, Clinton himself has used the same phrase several times in the past.

He used it repeatedly while running for president in 1991 and 1992, declaring at one Little Rock, Ark., event, "Together, we can make America great again."

And in a campaign ad for his wife in 2008, Bill Clinton said, "It's time for another comeback, time to make America great again."

Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway pointed to the inconvenient footage in calling the former president's allegations about Trump's slogan a "disgrace." 

“That performance is really something,” she said Friday on “Fox & Friends.” “Bill Clinton is known as a very strong campaigner, a great voice in politics -- but not this cycle.”