Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) opened Thursday evening’s Democratic debate in Milwaukee by appealing to voters not to let “the Trumps of the world divide us.”
The debate–the first of several debates added to a once-sparse schedule–was hosted by PBS and Facebook in the wake of Sanders’s big victory in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday.
Americans, Sanders said, proved they want a “political revolution.” In a message apparently pitched at black voters in particular, Sanders added that voters wanted to fix a “broken criminal justice system,” noting that “more people in jail in the United States of America than any other country on earth” while Wall Street executives walk free.
In her own introduction, Hillary Clinton also aimed her message at black voters, saying that “African-Americans face discrimination in the job market, housing, education and the criminal justice system.” As the presidential race heads to the South Carolina primary next week, black voters hold the fate of both campaigns in their hands.
Sanders repeated his attack on Donald Trump later in the debate, in discussing immigration, urging Americans to stand up to the “Trumps of the world, who are trying to divide us up.” He attacked Clinton for wanting to close the borders to unstoppable flows of thousands of unaccompanied illegal alien minors from Central America in 2014.
Clinton added another attack of her own, in a question about foreign policy: “American Muslims are on the front lines of our defense….so when somebody like Donald Trump and others stirs up the demagoguery against American Muslims, that hurts us at home.” She added that we could not have a president who insults Islam.