Bill Clinton: Obama "Played The Race Card On Me"... Listen To Audio
Scroll down for Barack Obama's response to Bill Clinton's "race card" comments:
In a radio interview posted Monday, Bill Clinton claimed that Barack Obama's campaign has "played the race card on me." (Scroll down for audio). According to ABC News, Clinton was
"talking to station WHYY about the fallout over his comparison of Obama's South Carolina primary victory with the support of black Democrats to Jesse Jackson's primary wins. Those comments were portrayed by critics as an attempt to highlight Obama's race."
Clinton told the interviewer that "you have to really go some to play the race card on me." Clinton then lists the reasons why no one should portray him as a racist. He includes the fact that he has an "office in Harlem, and Harlem voted for Hillary, by the way." He goes on to say, "I have 1.4 Million people around the world, mostly people of color... on the world's least expensive AIDS drugs...."
At the very end of the interview, when Bill thinks he is no longer on the line, you can hear him saying, "I don't think I should take any shit from anybody on that, do you?"
Listen to the interview below:
Update: Obama was asked about Clinton's comments on WHYY today:
The Politico has the full exchange:
"Hold on a second, so former president Clinton dismissed my victory in South Carolina as being similar to Jesse Jackson and he's suggesting that somehow I had something to do with it? Ok, well then you better ask him about it," Obama said.
He was asked if, as Clinton said, his campaign had a secret plan to use race.
"Was there something that we had a plan to get him to say that my campaign was like Jesse Jackson's? I don't know what he is referring to unfortunately," he said, laughing.
Update: Questioned about the comments later in the day, Bill Clinton denied making them, and castigated the media for making hay over the issue. "I'm not going to play your games," he said. Full transcript below.
NBC/NJ: "Sir, what did you mean yesterday when you said that the Obama campaign was playing the race card on you?"
CLINTON: "When did I say that, and to whom did I say that?"NBC/NJ: "On WHYY radio yesterday"
CLINTON: "No, no, no. That's not what I said. You always follow me around and play these little games, and I'm not going to play your games today. This is a day about election day. Go back and see what the question was, and what my answer was. You have mischaracterized it to get another cheap story to divert the American people from the real urgent issues before us, and I choose not to play your game today. Have a nice day."
NBC/NJ: "Respectfully sir, though, you did say ..."
CLINTON: "Have a nice day." [continues shaking hands with supporters]. I said what I said, you can go and look at the interview. And if you'll be real honest, you'll also report what the question was and what the answer was."
NBC/NJ: "They asked you if you regretted your comparing Jesse Jackson to Barack Obama on the day after the South Carolina primary."
CLINTON: "And I pointed out that I did not do that, and that I complimented them both. And that Jesse Jackson took no offense. And I called him myself, I said, 'Did you find that offensive?' And he said no.
The Huffington Post | April 22, 2008 08:17 AM