Bill Clinton argued ferociously against several Black Lives Matter protesters seeking to disrupt a Hillary Clinton campaign event in Philadelphia on Thursday, pointing angrily at the hecklers as he accused them of “defending the people who kill the lives you say matter!”
The former president shouted over the protesters for over more than ten minutes, pushing back on their assertion that his wife’s use of the term “superpredator” in a 1996 crime speech was racist and made her complicit in the murder of African-Americans.
#ad#”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 into the streets to murder other African-American children,” Clinton fumed. “Maybe you thought they were good citizens. She didn’t. She didn’t!You are defending the people who kill the lives you say matter! Tell the truth!”
The back-and-forth continued unabated, with Clinton vociferously defending his welfare-reform bill and the Clinton Foundation’s work for “black lives” in Africa.
Hillary Clinton has been haunted by her “superpredators” comment for months, and in February said she regretted using the term. But her campaign has struggled with Black Lives Matter protesters in the past — in a contentious meeting with several activists after a speech last August, Clinton appeared to grow frustrated with their claim that black lives were only threatened by white people. “Well, respectfully, if that is your position, then I will talk only to white people about how we are going to deal with this very real problem,” she said at the time.
Watch the full eleven-minute exchange between Bill Clinton and the Black Lives Matter protesters here:
Bill Clinton Blasts Black Lives Matter Protesters