In his speech, Sanders outlined for the first time, his view of the real legacy of Bill and Hillary Clinton.
“I understand,” he said, “that many black voters have positive feelings about the Clintons. That is true for many working people in general, largely because Bill Clinton had the good fortune to serve in office during a time of a strong economic expansion. And my opponent, Hillary Clinton, is largely campaigning on the image of the previous Clinton administration. It’s true that Bill Clinton made himself popular by going on TV and playing the saxophone, but image pales by comparison with the real record. I urge you to consider that real record:
Right in the middle of Bill Clinton’s first campaign for president, just weeks before the crucial vote in New Hampshire, Bill Clinton rushed home to sign the death warrant for Ricky Ray Rector, a mentally impaired black man who was so unaware of what was about to happen to him that he asked if he could save his last meal’s dessert for later. He had this man executed – a child really – as a sacrificial lamb on the alter of the “tough on crime” god. And we should all be aware what that whole campaign around being “tough on crime”, the campaign against “violent criminals” and so on was really all about: It was a code word for black people, it was using the ’n’ word without the fallout.
“Once in office, the Clinton administration didn’t stop  there. One of his major steps was welfare “reform”, and it’s ironic how “reform” nowadays has come to mean making things harder on working class people and harder on black people in particular. What was the result of that “reform” – one that was signed with the support of Hillary Rodham Clinton? One result is that today this, the richest nation in the world, has one of the highest child poverty rates in the developed world.
“Then there is the issue of the mass incarceration of black people, something that was given a huge boost through the omnibus crime bill that Bill Clinton signed, again with no objection from the First Lady, who today is running for president. Just one measure of that bill tells you all you need to know. Under it, a convicted felon is barred from not only receiving federal aid to go to college – which often times will condemn that person to a choice between a life of poverty or a life of crime – not only that, but it prohibits him from ever living in public housing. So, just imagine the choice some mother has: Her 20 year old son is released from prison after serving maybe a year or two. She is living in public housing with her three other children. She has to put that elder son out on the street; she cannot allow him to live with her, or else she risks herself and her other children being put out on the street. Can you imagine anything so cruel, so cold hearted?
“And while we’re talking about housing, let’s remember that it’s not true that the Clinton administration cut federal funding for housing. It was just a matter of what housing. Instead of real housing – housing for struggling families – they shifted the funding to housing – or should we say ‘warehousing’ – of criminals. That is to say, a massive increase in federal spending for prisons. Money shifted away from food stamps, child welfare budgets, federal housing and instead spent on the mass incarceration machine.
“Today, Bill Clinton apologizes for this ‘mistake’. But that is only when his wife is running for president and the two of them are appealing for the votes of black voters. How seriously can that be taken?
“As the black writer and intellectual, Michelle Alexander, has said, ‘If you listen closely here, you’ll notice that Hillary is still singing the same old tune in a slightly different key. She is arguing that we ought not be seduced by Bernie Sanders’ rhetoric because we must be “pragmatic,” “face political realities” and not get tempted to believe that we can fight for economic justice and win.’
“And speaking of admitting to ‘mistakes’, today my opponent admits that her vote to go to war in Iraq was a ‘mistake’. But it was just back in 2011 that she was saying ‘It’s time for the United States to start thinking of Iraq as a business opportunity.’ A business opportunity? How many tens of thousands of Iraqi men women and children have to be sacrificed for this business opportunity? Is that what human life comes down to – especially if that life is not of a blond-haired, blue-eyed person? Just a business opportunity?
“Today, Hillary Clinton talks about all her experience, especially as secretary of state. Let’s remember that that experience can best be summarized by the US military’s involvement in the overthrow of Moammar Qaddafi in Libya. But yet her own e mails reveal that her advocacy of that overthrow was taken just as light mindedly as the Bush invasion of Iraq. Ms. Clinton, above all others in the Obama administration, advocated the intervention without ever considering what would come afterwards. As then Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, put it     “We were playing it by ear.” So, even if she thinks her support for the US invasion of Iraq was simply a ‘mistake’, she has evidently learned nothing from it.
“My opponent has decried my talking about the money she has received from Wall St. All in all, when you include the money given to her political campaigns, for her speeches and – last but not least – the money given to her and her husband’s so-called non-profit foundation – that money totals $3 billion. Not million, not tens or even hundreds of millions. Billions, with a “b”. Among the donors were Elaine and Gerald Schuster, who made their fortunes ‘operating nursing homes and public housing developments, tangling with union leaders, government and housing activists in the process,’ as a Washington Post article put it. Then there was the Walton family, of Walmart fame. Now, I ask you, do you think the Schusters and the Walton’s donated their money to the Clinton’s out of the goodness of their hearts? Or do you think they did it to ensure that Hillary’s so-called “finance reform” measures would be nothing but a slight tweak, one about which the financier Jaret Seiberg wrote that it “demonstrates an understanding of the financial system”? You decide.”