Also see: Bernie or Hillary? Cornel West and Dolores Huerta Debate After Sanders’ Upset Win in Michigan
We continue our conversation on the 2016 race with a discussion between Dolores Huerta (a backer of Hillary Clinton), Cornel West (a backer of Bernie Sanders) and Melina Abdullah of Black Lives Matter. We talk about the candidates’ stances on Israel, campaign finance, “superpredators,” trade policy and more.
TRANSCRIPT:
CORNEL WEST: So the class issue is fundamental, but it doesn’t fully grasp not just race, not just gender, not just sexual orientation, but also empire. You see, when I hear Hillary Clinton say that she – she loves children, and you’ve got 550 Palestinian children killed in 51 years, and she – 51 days, and she can’t say a mumbling word. Bernie Sanders gave a speech. He said, “The Israeli Defense Forces went too far. I stand on this, and I’m not going to meet with the Israeli prime minister.” Now, he’s saying this as a Jewish brother. That takes courage in the face of the powerful forces coming at him. Hillary Clinton, she’s hawkish, she’s right-wing, she’s imperial in her orientation. That’s very important.
AMY GOODMAN: Dolores Huerta, your response?
DOLORES HUERTA: Well, I have to say that Hillary Clinton stood up to Netanyahu when they were going to be extending some of the housing in the West Bank. So, I believe that Hillary is very strong. And I really don’t believe she’s all those things that Cornel just that. Excuse me to differ with you on that, brother.
CORNEL WEST: No, that’s fine, my sister.
DOLORES HUERTA: But the other thing, too, about Hillary, you know, Hillary came down into the Rio Grande Valley of Texas when she got out of law school. She could have gone to some corporation. She went down there into South Texas, with the poorest people of Mexican descent down there, to register voters door to door. I first met Hillary Clinton when she invited me to the White House when she was the first lady – myself and a group of women of color. And she…