Bill Clinton has a history of sometimes suffering from severe foot-in-mouth disease and veering dangerously off message while on the campaign trail for his wife, Hillary. On Thursday, a short video clip of the former president sparring with Black Lives Matter protesters from the stump in Philadelphia once again raised the question of whether Bill is actually helping or hurting Hillary's campaign.
The heated exchange began after the demonstrators interrupted Clinton several times while he was on stage, lambasting his administration's Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. The legislation has been blamed for ushering in an era of mass incarceration that disproportionately affects blacks and Latinos, raising the US prison population by more than a million.
But the part of the exchange that has been shared most widely on social media probably came when one of the protesters suggested Clinton should be charged with "crimes against humanity."
"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," Clinton said, pointing his finger at the crowd. "Maybe you thought they were good citizens."
"You are defending the people who killed the lives you say matter!" he went on. "Tell the truth. You are defending the people who caused young people to go out and take guns."
Clinton also defended the crime legislation, saying it helped bring about record lows in crime and murder rates.
"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, a 46-year low in the deaths of people of gun violence," he said. "How do you think those lives were, that mattered? Whose lives were saved, that mattered?"
The Clinton campaign declined to comment Thursday, while the Sanders campaign did not immediately respond to an inquiry from VICE News.
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