Former President Bill Clinton, stumping for his wife’s campaign in New York, went back and forth with a group of #BlackLivesMatter protesters who crashed the event.
The protesters heckled Clinton over his wife’s support of Wall Street bankers, and her 1996 speech about violent crime in which she called a group of gang-members who armed younger children in their community “super predators.”
Bill Clinton defended his wife’s use of the term, and argued that the #BlackLivesMatter protesters were, in fact, defending gang leaders, drug dealers and violent criminals:
“I don’t know how you would characterize the gang leaders who got 13-year-old kids hopped up on crack and sent them out on the street to murder other African-American children…Maybe you thought they were good citizens… You are defending the people who kill the people whose lives you say matter!”
The former President went on to talk about Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy experience, noting to his audience that he would “tell you another story about a place where black lives matter: Africa,” and touting his wife’s civil rights record
Clinton wrapped up the nearly 10-minute tone-deaf exchange by insisting that the protesters were “afraid of the truth,” and that America required a leader who would not give in to the “extreme” right or left.
Probably sensing the damage that would ensue once Bill’s statements became public, the Clinton campaign issued an apology for Hillary Clinton’s 1996 statement immediately after the event. Bill Clinton is probably going to also receive an all-expense paid vacation from “helping out” on the trail.
