Clinton and Sanders Take the Gloves Off in New York Debate

Things got contentious between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in their ninth presidential debate, held Thursday in Brooklyn, N.Y., five days ahead of the New York State primary.

In the debate at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, broadcast on CNN, the two Democrats clashed over economics, foreign policy, gun control, and more in efforts to convince the audience who's most qualified to be president.

As a matter of fact, qualifications came up in the first question from moderator Wolf Blitzer. He noted that Sanders had questioned Clinton's qualifications, a comment that came in response to an article that made it appear she had said he's not qualified, although she never actually made that statement. Sanders had later walked his comment back as well.

"You said that something is clearly lacking in terms of her judgment and you accused her of having a credibility gap," Blitzer said to the Vermont senator. "So let me ask you, do you believe that Secretary Clinton has the judgment to be president?"

Sanders responded, "Does Secretary Clinton have the experience and the intelligence to be a president? Of course she does. ... But I do question her judgment. I question a judgment which voted for the war in Iraq, the worst foreign policy blunder in the history of this country, voted for virtually every disastrous trade agreement which cost us millions of decent-paying jobs. And I question her judgment about running super PACs, which are collecting tens of millions of dollars from special interests, including $15 million from Wall Street."

Clinton countered, "Senator Sanders did call me unqualified. I've been called a lot of things in my life. That was a first. And then he did say that he had to question my judgment. Well, the people of New York voted for me twice to be their senator from New York, and President Obama trusted my judgment enough to ask me to be secretary of State for the United States." She also brought up a recent interview Sanders gave to the New York Daily News, in which he was vague about how he'd execute some of his proposals, such as breaking up big banks.

They went on to spar over financial regulations, with Sanders contending that Clinton is beholden to Wall Street firms because of their campaign contributions, although she has always said she favors strong regulation of financial companies. When co-moderator Dana Bash asked him to come up with an example of Clinton doing the bidding of Wall Street, he replied that he introduced legislation to break up the banks while "Secretary Clinton was busy giving speeches to Goldman Sachs for $225,000 a speech."

Clinton then commented, "He cannot come up with any example, because there is no example." She also said she had called out bad behaviors of the major banks when she was a senator. Sanders then remarked, "Oh, my goodness, they must have been really crushed by this."

They argued further over Clinton's refusal to release transcripts of her paid speeches to Wall Street firms and other unless other candidates do so; Sanders pointed out that he has given no such speeches (sitting senators are barred from giving paid speeches), although she meant Republican candidates as well. She also called out Sanders on his slowness in releasing his tax returns.

"Of course we will release our taxes," Sanders said. "Jane [his wife] does our taxes. We've been a little bit busy lately. You'll excuse us. But we will get them out." Clinton commented, "Well, you know, there are a lot of copy machines around."

On foreign policy, Sanders criticized Clinton as not having considered the consequences of the overthrow of Moammar Gadhafi in Libya, saying, "Regime change often has unintended consequences in Iraq and in Libya right now, where ISIS has a very dangerous foothold." Clinton said Sanders, though, voted for a resolution to back resistance to Gadhafi in Libya and go to the United Nations Security Council to seek support for action. Sanders countered that the resolution did not approve the use of military power to depose Gadhafi.

Also in the realm of foreign policy, Sanders said Israel has been "disproportionate" in its military response to terrorist attacks, killing many Palestinian civilians. He said is he "100 percent pro-Israel ... but in the long run if we are ever going to bring peace to that region, which has seen so much hatred and so much war, we are going to have to treat the Palestinian people with respect and dignity." He contended that Clinton has shied away from criticizing Israel.

Clinton replied that Israel has faced "constant threat" from the terrorist group Hamas, but that "does not mean that we should not continue to do everything we can to try to reach a two-state solution, which would give the Palestinians the rights and the autonomy that they deserve."

On domestic issues, co-moderator Errol Louis of New York news channel NY1 asked both candidates if they had any regrets about the 1994 crime bill, which Sanders supported in Congress and Clinton's husband, Bill, signed into law as president. The bill, which expanded mandatory minimum sentencing for certain crimes, has been blamed for the mass incarceration of young black men.

Clinton said the bill "had some positive aspects," such as addressing violence against women and creating helpful programs for youth, but "there were decisions that were made that now we must revisit and we have to correct. I think that sentences got much too long." Sanders agreed that there were good and bad aspects of the bill, and both said it is now time to address racism in the criminal justice system.

Sanders stood by a comment he made this week, though, criticizing Clinton's use of the term "superpredators" for some young offenders, while discussing the crime bill in the 1990s. She has recently said she should not have used the term, while Bill Clinton defended her. Sanders said he called out Bill Clinton "because it was a racist term, and everybody knew it was a racist term."

Sanders further questioned Clinton's commitment to clean energy, saying she has taken too much money from the fossil fuel industry, and that as secretary of State she encouraged other countries to extract natural gas via fracking, a drilling technique that has been blamed for contamination of groundwater. She responded that she is a proponent of clean, renewable, energy and that she encouraged fracking only because natural gas is "one of the bridge fuels" between fossil fuels and cleaner energy.

In other areas, Clinton questioned how Sanders would pay for some of his ambitious proposals, such as universal single-payer health care and free tuition at public colleges and universities -- he said greater taxation of Wall Street and the wealthy is the answer -- and said they agree of the diagnosis of America's problems but disagree on the cure. To get to universal health care, for instance, she favors building on President Obama's Affordable Care Act. And Clinton denounced Sanders's resistance to holding gun manufacturers and sellers liable for crimes commited with guns.

Both also asserted their support for LGBT rights at some point. In a discussion of reproductive rights and some states' effort to limit abortion access, Sanders said, "You're looking at a senator and former congressman who proudly has a 100 percent pro-choice voting record, who will take on those Republican governors who are trying to restrict a woman's right to choose, who will take on those governors right now who are discriminating outrageously against the LGBT community, who comes from a state which led the effort for gay marriage in this country, proudly so."

Clinton, in her closing statement, promised to work to break down "economic barriers," but added, "We also have racial barriers, gender barriers, homophobia barriers, disability barriers," and pledged to work to bring those down as well. Earlier on, countering a comment made by Republican candidate Ted Cruz, she asserted that "New York values," including an appreciation of diversity, are a good thing.

There was much, much more over the course of the two-hour debate. Find an annotated transcript via The Washington Post, and watch the Post's three-minute summation of the debate in the video below.