Clinton Apologizes to Tearful Unemployed Coal Miner for Promising to Put People Like Him 'Out of Business'

Hillary Clinton tried to mend fences with a laid-off coal worker who tearfully confronted her about her recent comment promising to "put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business."

"I just want to know how you can say you are going to put a lot of coal miners out of jobs and then come in here and tell us how you're going to be our friend?" the man, Bo Copley, asked the Democratic front-runner during a round table in West Virginia Monday, referring to a remark she made while touting a clean energy plan at a CNN town hall in March.

"I don't know how to explain it other than what I said was totally out of context for what I meant because I have been talking about helping coal country for a very long time," Clinton replied. "It was a misstatement because what I was saying is the way things are going now, they will continue to lose jobs … It didn't mean that we were going to do it. What I said was that is going to happen unless we take action to help and prevent it."

"I do feel a little bit sad and sorry that I gave folks the reason, or the excuse, to be so upset with me, because that is not what I intended at all," Clinton continued. "Now I can't take it back, and I certainly can't get people who, for political reasons or very personal reasons, painful reasons, are upset with me. What I want you to know is I'm going to do everything I can to help, no matter what happens politically."

After the round table, Copley told reporters that Clinton's apology didn't sway him and that he "would have liked to have heard more of what her plan is" for coal country.

"I'm not into political games," he said, according to NBC News. "I want to hear the plans you have in store for us if you do get elected."