Bill Clinton trades barbs with Black Lives Matter protesters in Philadelphia
Former President Bill Clinton traded barbs with Black Lives Matter protesters who repeatedly interrupted him during a campaign event for his wife, Hillary Clinton, in Philadelphia Thursday.
“I like protesters, but the ones who won’t let you answer are afraid of the truth,” Clinton said, before attempting to defend some of the more controversial policies of his own presidency, such as the 1994 Violent Crime Control Act, that have prompted activist criticism against Hillary Clinton’s White House bid.
Despite having since denounced the legislation — which, more than 20 years after its passage, is widely considered responsible for the problem of mass incarceration in the U.S. — Hillary Clinton’s previous support for the bill has continued to haunt her presidential campaign, as has the comment she made referring to juvenile offenders as “super predators” during her husband’s 1996 primary campaign for reelection. After an activist confronted Hillary Clinton about the 20-year-old remark at a fundraiser ahead of South Carolina’s democratic primary, the candidate apologized, saying that she “shouldn’t have used those words,” and insisting that she “wouldn’t use them today.”
Her husband, however, took a different approach when faced with the same criticism in Philadelphia on Thursday.
“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 onto the street to murder other African-American children,” Bill Clinton told protesters, defending his wife’s controversial “super predators” comment. “Maybe you thought they were good citizens; she didn’t.”
“You are defending the people who killed the lives you say matter,” he added.
Bill Clinton has also repudiated the 1994 crime bill, lamenting the results of some of the harsher provisions — without which, he has argued, the otherwise good legislation would never have passed.
President Bill Clinton signs the $30 billion crime bill at the White House on Sept. 13, 1994. (Photo: Denis Paquin/AP)
Clinton doubled down on this stance during his speech in Philadelphia Thursday, insisting through interruptions that he had “talked to a lot of African-American groups; they thought black lives mattered,” and even with the addition of harsher sentencing provisions, “they said take this bill because our kids are being shot in the street by gangs.”
Pointing to a protester in the crowd, Clinton charged, “She don’t want to hear any of that. You know what else she don’t want to hear? Because of that bill, we had a 25-year low in crime, a 33-year low in the murder rate, and — listen to this — because of that and the background-check law, we had a 46-year low in the deaths of people by gun violence.”
Apparently unfazed by the disruptive crowd, Clinton actually managed to use the protesters’ slogan to continue making a case for Hillary.
“I’ll tell you another story about a place where black lives matter: Africa,” Clinton said, transitioning back into his regular stump speech with a story about the former secretary of state’s work in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
