Bernie Sanders calls out Hillary Clinton for using 'a racist term' in 1996

(Image credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

During the CNN Democratic debate, Bernie Sanders said he called out former President Bill Clinton for defending his wife's use of the term "superpredator" during a speech in the 1990s because it was "a racist term and everyone knew it was a racist term."

Hillary Clinton made the remark during an address in 1996 in support of the 1994 Violent Crime Control Act, and said "superpredators" had "no conscience, no empathy." Sanders said he voted for the crime bill because it "had the Violence Against Women Act in it," and he worked to "eliminate domestic violence" while mayor of Burlington, Vermont. The United States has a "broken criminal justice system," he added, and "we have to rethink the system from the bottom on up."

In February, Hillary Clinton told The Washington Post she was talking about "the impact violent crime and vicious drug cartels were having on communities across the country and the particular danger they posed to children and families. Looking back, I shouldn't have used those words, and I wouldn't use them today."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.