Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders held a fierce and substantive debate in Flint, Michigan, on Sunday night, disagreeing over trade, guns and the auto industry bailout while joining forces to call for the resignation of
state governor Rick Snyder over the city’s water contamination crisis.
Shortly after they took the stage, the Associated Press announced that Sanders had won the Democratic caucuses in Maine, his eighth victory in the 2016 presidential primary race. In a statement, the leftwing Vermont senator thanked Maine’s voters and claimed “momentum” heading into Tuesday’s primaries in Michigan and Mississippi.
Onstage he and the former secretary of state had one of their sharpest exchanges yet when they were asked by a member of the audience about trade and job creation, an issue Sanders had been attacking Clinton over in the lead-up to the debate.
“Secretary Clinton supported virtually every one of the disastrous trade agreements written by corporate America,” Sanders said.
“He voted against the money that ended up saving the auto industry,” Clinton replied. “I think that is a pretty big difference.”
“If you are talking about the Wall Street bailout, where some of your friends destroyed this economy … ” Sanders began.
“You know…” Clinton interjected, before Sanders cut her off: “Excuse me, I’m talking,” he said, dismissing her with his hand.
Sanders repeatedly attacked Clinton’s past support for international trade agreements, an issue he is attempting to use against her in Michigan in order to win blue-collar votes in the rust-belt industrial state.
“I am very glad … Secretary Clinton has discovered religion on this issue,” Sanders said, referring to her position on trade. “We’ve lost 60,000 factories since 2001, they’re going to start having to — if I’m president — invest in this country, not in China, not in Mexico.”
The candidates began the debate by addressing the city’s toxic water crisis. Sanders recalled his meetings with residents: “I have to tell you what I heard, and what I saw literally shattered me. And it was beyond belief that children in Flint, Michigan, in the United States of America in the year 2016 are being poisoned.”
Clinton, who spotlighted the issue in an earlier debate, reminded the CNN audience that she had pushed the Democratic National Committee to host a debate in Flint.
“It is raining lead in Flint, and the state is derelict in not coming forward with the money that is required,” Clinton said, joining Sanders for the first time in calling for the governor to “resign or be recalled."