Tipsheet

Bill Clinton Apologizes (Sort of) to Black Lives Matter

After an extensive yelling match between the Black Lives Matter group and former President Bill Clinton on Thursday, he offered a show of apology to the group Friday evening at his wife's rally.  

“Now I like and believe in protests. I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t, ’cause I engaged in some when I was a kid," he said.  “But I never thought I should drown anybody else out. And I confess, maybe it’s just a sign of old age, but it bothers me now when that happens."

“So I did something yesterday in Philadelphia. I almost want to apologize for it, but I want to use it as an example of the danger threatening our country,” Clinton said.

“I rather vigorously defended my wife, as I am wont to do, and I realized, finally, I was talking past [the protester] the way she was talking past me. We gotta stop that in this country. We gotta listen to each other again,” Clinton continued.

Clinton was under heat for signing the 1994 crime bill that increased incarceration and has many African-American voters concerned.  His wife also said in 1996 that certain criminals were 'superpredators' who needed to be 'brought to heel.'